As the old cinematic folklore goes, numerous actors were once attached to Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-confusing La La Land before Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling were ultimately cast, perhaps most notably Emma Watson and Miles Teller. Teller has previously spoken out rather critically about Chazelle’s decision to drop him from the project — texting the director “what the fuck, bro?” when he found out the news from his agent. Now Watson is also commenting on her un-casting, though her reasons are a bit simpler. Just blame her commitment to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and knowing she couldn’t juggle both roles at once. “I knew I had horse training, I knew I had dancing, I knew I had three months of singing ahead of me, and I knew I had to be in London to really do that,” Watson explained during a SiriusXM Town Hall. “And this wasn’t a movie I could just kind of parachute into. I knew I had to do the work, and I had to be where I had to be. So scheduling conflict-wise, it just didn’t work out.”
Watson did, though, mildly chastise the way the film chose to handle those early casting announcements. “It’s one of these frustrating things,” she said, “where sort of names get attached to projects very early on as a way to kind of build anticipation or excitement for something that’s coming before anything is really actually agreed or set in stone.” We’re sure Emma Stone and her Oscar didn’t mind that at the end of the day.
