Writer and director Cameron Crowe, who Stone also name-checked as a formative influence in June while accepting a “Trailblazer” prize at the MTV Movie Awards, recently spoke with the actress at the Sunset Tower Hotel in L.A.

CAMERON CROWE: I picked out a theme song for this interview. [music plays] This is “Delfonics Theme” by The Delfonics.

EMMA STONE: This is perfect. This is The Delfonics’ actual theme?

CROWE: Yeah. The group had a theme, so they’re saying, “We’re going to usher you into our whole world with this song . . .” But I think that an interview should have a theme song, and this will be ours. I heard it the other day, and I just thought, This is us.

STONE: Does it play throughout the interview?

CROWE: No, I think we’ll just let it be a prelude to our conversation . . . So welcome to our interview.

STONE: Thank you.

CROWE: I will start by asking you this: summer.

STONE: Summer . . .

CROWE: Summer is . . . Well, I always think of To Kill a Mockingbird, and a tire hanging from a tree, and a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone, and people are coming out of their houses . . . That’s the mythical summer experience. I don’t know if it exists. But what is a definitive summer in your life?

STONE: We went to Coronado every summer, so I always think of driving over that bridge from San Diego, and then walking down that little strip on the main street, going cosmic bowling at midnight, eating at this 24-hour diner at 3 a.m.—that’s summer to me.

CROWE: How did you end up in Coronado?

STONE: Because we lived in Arizona, and if we hadn’t gone to Coronado, then my summer would be defined by being in a cold, dark room watching movies. Arizona is the worst place to spend the summer—it’s like 125 degrees—so my mom, my brother, and I would go to the beach for two months to escape the heat.

CROWE: So you knew the playhouse in Coronado?

STONE: Yeah, the Lamb’s Players Theatre. I went and saw the kids in plays there every summer, but I would also take, like, a weeklong class there. We’d just hang out on the beach and walk around and go to Hotel Del [Coronado], and learn about the ghost of the Hotel Del. You go to Coronado, right?

CROWE: I do. I love the Hotel Del. It’s crazy.

STONE: It’s in Some Like it Hot [1959].

CROWE: Do you feel like the experience that you have in a location stays in that location—that the location will always have the flavor of whatever it is that happened for you there?

STONE: I do. I was actually driving through L.A. by myself last night at midnight, and I drove by this bar that I’d had an experience at, so I drove by the parking spot where I had parked, at this meter, and it was like this spot . . . I could feel that entire experience I’d had coming off this spot all over again, and I realized that this town is full of ghosts for me now. And if I drive over that bridge to Coronado, then I become 12 years old again. It’s also hard for me to go to Phoenix. Every corner is something in Phoenix.