How Emma Slayed Anxiety

The award-winning star of La La Land opens up about her battle against the ‘little green monster’ of panic .

- Nici De Wet

SHE’S the current belle of the big screen, her new film is the talk of Tinsel town and award after award has streamed in for the quirky redhead who sings, dances and acts with enviable ease. Just 28 years old, Emma Stone is one of the brightest young things to hit Hollywood in a long time and everyone wants a piece of her. Already the proud owner of a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Oscar looms large for the lovely star of La La Land.

“Emma can do everything,” says veteran director Woody Allen, who’s cast her in two of his movies. “She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent and she can astonish. She’s really got it all. And everyone thinks she’s just adorable.”

He’s right – she can do everything. She’s shown her versatility across genres, shining in everything from hard-hitting drama (The Help) and romcom (Crazy Stupid Love) to superhero blockbuster (The Amazing Spider-Man) and black comedy-drama (Birdman).

Yet that engaging smile and larger than-large eyes give away nothing about the crippling condition she’s battled most of her life. Emma recently spoke out for the first time about the fact that she has an anxiety disorder that first manifested in panic attacks when she was a little girl.

“It was constant,” she told Rolling Stone magazine. “When I was about seven I was convinced the house was burning down. I could sense it. Not a hallucination, just a tightening in my chest, feeling I couldn’t breathe, like the world was going to end. There were some flare-ups like that, but my anxiety was constant.

“At a certain point I couldn’t go to friends’ houses anymore – I could barely get out the door to school.”