Emma Stone applies to be on Jeopardy! every year—and not that “Celebrity” horsecrap
"I really want to earn my stripes," noted the Poor Things star, who says she watches every episode of the syndicated game show
Aux News Jeopardy!
There’s nothing better, when reading or listening to a celebrity interview, than those moments when the interviewer stumbles onto one of their subjects’ secret obsessions: Those little things we all have lodged in our heads that will grind any professional, public conversation to a halt in favor of a few minutes of sheer nerding out. Case in point: A recent Variety Awards Circuit podcast interview with Emma Stone, who slams the breaks on discussion of her recent film Poor Things in order to effuse for a bit about her deep love of, and desire to be on, TV game show Jeopardy!.
And not that Celebrity Jeopardy! softball shit, either, Stone is very quick to clarify, politely cutting interviewer Clayton Davis off to make it clear she means The Real Show. “I do not want to be on Celebrity Jeopardy!. I really want to earn my stripes,” Stone says, noting that she watches every episode of the series, marking down which questions she gets right and wrong. (She doesn’t mention her Coryat scores, but we’d be shocked if she didn’t have them on hand.) Stone also states that she takes the yearly online Jeopardy! test every June, dreaming each time of making the cut, and waiting in hope for a response. It is, no fooling, the most enthused she sounds during the whole interview.
And, don’t get us wrong: The rest of the conversation is good, too, as Stone talks about working with Yorgos Lanthimos, the process of becoming Poor Things’ Bella, and her other recent film roles. (Because it’s a film-focused interview, she sadly doesn’t talk about her just-wrapped-up TV series The Curse. Emma Stone’s having a hell of a year, huh?) But none of that can compare to us thinking about what it would be like to land a coveted spot as a Jeopardy! contestant, make the trek out to California for filming—and then see Emma Stone, Oscar winner, as one of your two opponents. You’d die, right? You’d just die.
56 Comments
Emma Stone is just like some different type of human. Some kind of hyper-motivated future mutant who branched off the genetic tree a hundred years early. It makes her fascinating, alluring, and a little frightening.
That red “A” she wore was clearly for “Advanced”.
She has been here since the Earth was formed and was waiting for a chance….
Soon she and the rare others of her kind will have gather and start cutting each others heads off to determine who will be the one.
honestly she could be controlling a small country like a warlord but she chooses to act instead.
Be careful what you wish for. Weird Al was on in the 80s, made himself look like a jerk in front of millions of people, and didn’t even get a lousy copy of their home game.
He fared better on Wheel of Fortune.
Did he do better on The Price Is Righ-igh-ight?
He should never have picked potpourri for $100.
It took me WAY too long to remember that Al had a song called “I Lost on Jeopardy” and for a moment I was afraid he’d actually been a prick on national TV and I just didn’t remember.
Me too but I knew the statement had to be wrong on a fundamental level because it said Weird Al was being a jerk. Weird Al being the nice guy in show business is essential to the fabric of the universe. It’s a universal constant like the speed of light.
Good on her. Celebrity Jeopardy is… not very serious. My dad gets most of the questions right and tries to brag before being reminded oh yeah its Celebrity Jeopardy…
I seem to recall it was fairly serious, unless Connery or Ferguson were on.
“I’ll take the Penis Mightier for $100”
Yeah I think Andy Richter has the record for the most money won, and I remember him talking about how it was a little too dumbed down. I’d like to see him and Stone both go up against the regular questions. I think they’d both do well.
Yep I remember that statement. Its definitely easier, unless your Wolf Blitzer. I will say I’m glad Celebrity Jeopardy is around just to see Wolf get every question wrong.
Even regular Jeopardy! questions are easy compared to shows like Only Connect or University Challenge. Both of which are better from a pure trivia standpoint, since there’s no real gameplay like J! has.
I saw that Celebrity Jeopardy was on Hulu so decided to watch it. I made it about halfway through round one before turning it off in disgust. Extremely dumbed down.
Good for her, but you don’t get better at Jeopardy by watching Jeopardy. If you learn something from the show, it means they used the question already and the information is not helpful. You train for jeopardy by reading trivia and history books and whatnot. I hope she does that.
Having been on Jeopardy (2009), I can tell you that the most important part of the show (assuming you get on) is not the trivia knowledge – it’s mastering the buzzer timing. *That* is what you train for. But yeah, to get past the tests, you need to know a bunch of trivia for sure, but I don’t recall specifically studying ala Rosie Perez in “White Men Can’t Jump” – I think a reasonably well-read person can get thru the tests (there’s one to get an audition, and then one at the audition, iirc) without too much trouble – I think watching the show a lot can give you a sense of what kinds of questions they ask, and also give you a feel for those theme categories like “before and after” (like “that famous cowboy who tells jokes” – “who is John Wayne Brady”, etc)Also, I’m fairly certain one slams on “brakes”, and no one ever “slammed the breaks”.
One of my best friends in college was in the College Jeopardy Tournament, and that’s the first thing she said as well. The timing is everything. I actually flew out to LA with her for the tapings, and it was the first time I realized that they squeeze a fuckload of those shows into a single day.
How would you even study for it?
And more buzzer detailes, please (not that I’ll every audition).
The issue with the buzzer is that if you are early (ie, before the host completes asking the question), you get locked out for a period (2 sec, I think). That’s why when you watch the show, you’ll see people frantically pushing their button – they’ve been locked out and are trying to get back in before someone else buzzes in. So you need to get good at timing the buzzer so that you are hitting right when the question is asked. If I remember right, there’s also a light that players can see indicating when it’s safe to ring in, but regardless, it was hard to get the hang of it.When I played, I naively went in cold, without any practice – I later learned that a number of contestants had spent a lot of time practicing the buzzer (and one even went so far as to set up a mock set in their basement).If you have the chance to get on the show, I highly recommend it – even though I didn’t win, it was really fun both going thru the process of getting on the show and the actual show itself. Everyone involved was really nice, and the show staff really want you to do well. And yeah, they pack a whole bunch of show tapings every day – my taping was after lunch, so I got to watch a whole lot of Jeopardy, that’s for sure. Oh, and Alex seemed like a really nice guy – I remember the returning champion had a son with special needs who was a huge fan of the show, and Alex made sure to take a picture with his kid after he lost (they would do a pick of the contestant with Alex (and I guess now with Ken), but bringing the kid up seemed a little unusual). He also seemed pretty good natured about the whole SNL Jeopardy parody for what it’s worth.
Thank you. Wow, I can’t imagine trying to come up with an answer while also focusing on the buzzer ‘math’. Not for me, but thanks for the invitation!
Yes with regard to understanding Jeopardy specifics like categories. I have walked in cold and been unsure or stumped, and then I see the category and would have gotten it in a second had I known and understood the category. Being familiar with the common categories they use is essential.
I think it was either Amy Schneider or that Vegas Gambler guy who said the best trick was to read history books or so forth made for children. They tend to give the information very quickly.
James Holzhauer said it first and Amy picked it up.
They have a category they sometimes bring out that is specifically made up of answers that haven’t been used on Jeopardy before. They asked about Sojourner Truth and “Ain’t I a Woman” twice in the last week (once was Celebrity), so yeah, stuff gets repeated.You absolutely can learn what Jeopardy is likely to ask about. And you can learn what among those are your weak spots. I would make flashcards of rivers, for example, if I was going on. You don’t have to study all of opera, just the dozen or so that they’re likely to reference.Obviously that’s not all you do, but you can get better at Jeopardy by watching Jeopardy. Watch it for a few months and see if you don’t get better at it.
You certainly learn how to key in on the key phrases and the idiosyncratic way they write the clues and give additional hints within the clue.
True, though it might help her 1) get a sense of the rhythm of the questions, practicing her response, and 2) get a sense of what subjects she’s weaker and stronger in.
Surely, some producer will see this and give her a call. And don’t call me Shirley.
Shirley, that might happen or not.
I wonder who the most famous person to appear on regular Jeopardy is. The guy who played Mike Teevee in the original Wonka movie was on it once.
Wonder how that conversation went to tell him he’s not famous enough for Celebrity Jeopardy and he’d have to play for real.
I wonder if Emma keeps getting rejected for regular Jeopardy because they think having a celebrity would be too distracting.
Emma is distracting.
I wondered that too. Emma Stone is magnitudes more famous than the celebrities on Celebrity Jeopardy too, so it’d be doubly distracting on the regular show.
I wonder if this will start some “let Betty White host SNL” type uproar until they decide to give in.
Sounds like she doesn’t score highly enough on the Anytime test to get to the next barrier — I’m guessing they wouldn’t assume “Emma Stone” is THE Emma Stone — but also, yes, there’s no way they’d pick a celeb for the non-celeb show.
Her name’s actually Emily(there was another Emily Stone in SAG), so maybe she went by that.
I remember watching Molto Mario and he would always have 3 guests watching him cook. On one episode, he had Michael Stipe there. They didn’t reference him at all. Just Michael Stipe sitting there watching him cook. I think Maggie Gyllenhaal was on another. It was very distracting.
Maybe Jackie Fuchs (Fox)?She always had really interesting stories during the chats.
Oh boy, I bet Jackie Fuchs has several different types of interesting stories with the shit she was put through in the Runaways…
John McCain, yes, the last semi-rational Republican (or maybe second to last if think Mittens counts), was on the original (pre-Trebeck) Jeopardy in 1965. That’s gotta count as more famous than Mike Teevee, right? This was before he was a prisoner of war or a politician — he was just a guy then.
He lost by answering “Cathy loved him, but married Edgar Linton instead” with “What is Wuthering Heights?” (the book) rather than “Who is Heathcliff?” (the character in the book).
I thought maybe she wanted to host it.
I’d be a hell of a lot more interested in watching it with her hosting instead of Blossom or the dude who looks like mayonnaise became a real boy.
Did you get that joke from John Oliver? I have no idea if he said it, but it sounds like something he would.
No, that’s just what he strikes me as.
She’d be delightful. Maybe if her career starts to wane or she wants to slow down a bit. It’s fun to dream.
It’s a way long shot, but I’d be totally down.
Yeah I haven’t been invested in the host selection at all but if she were in the running I’d cast a vote.
I’d love to see how the pre-game banter goes with her:“So Emma, what do you do?”“I’m an actor.”“Ooh, tough job. Do you do a lot of waiting tables between gig?”“… no?”
Emma: I won the Academy Award for Best Actress.Trebek: Good for you. *without looking up from card, moves onto the next contestant*
My name once messed up the Academy Awards!How interesting…
In this world of celebrities I wish we could all be Alex Trebek.
I really liked Barbie. And Poor Things. And maybe it’s just because I’m paying a bit more attention.But the Oscar campaigns for both of these movies is so cringily tedious.