Emma Stone on dropping out of High School: “Had I graduated I would’ve missed [Superbad], and had I missed that opportunity I wouldn’t be here right now”

In the next two months, Emma Stone will appear in a whopping three films: Friends with Benefits (July 22), Crazy Stupid Love (July 29) and The Help (August 12). It’s hard to believe that she only got her start at age 18 with Superbad in 2007.

To get to where she is today, Emma dropped out of High School and made the move to Los Angeles.

She told Vanity Fair, “I did Superbad in what would’ve been my senior year… I was playing a senior, and had I graduated I would’ve missed that opportunity, and had I missed that opportunity I wouldn’t be here right now.”

That doesn’t mean things were easy for her. In fact, she said that she hit “rock bottom” after auditioning for Claire on NBC’s Heroes. “I could hear that, in the other room, a girl had just gone in and they were saying, ‘You are our pick … On a scale of 1 to 10 you’re an 11.” That’s when Hayden Panettiere, who played the part, walked out of the room. “I went home and just had this meltdown,” she says.

Written by Jennifer Abidor