Emma Stone won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 2016 musical film La La Land. She played Mia Dolan, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles who becomes romantically involved with Sebastian Wilder, a jazz pianist played by Ryan Gosling.
Directed by Damien Chazelle, La La Land deliberately draws on the visual language of classic Hollywood musicals while telling a more modern story about ambition, compromise, and relationships. Stone performed several songs in the film and prepared by studying earlier musicals, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, as well as films featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Stone’s Oscar was presented at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017, honoring films released during 2016. A famous ceremony mistake briefly announced La La Land as Best Picture before the presenters corrected the result and revealed Moonlight as the actual winner. Stone’s Best Actress victory itself was not overturned or disputed.