Emma Stone defends rumours Ryan Gosling is 'difficult'

Emma Stone was warned about how "difficult and demanding" Ryan Gosling was ahead of working with him on Gangster Squad.

The 27-year-old actress and handsome actor both stared in the 2013 action thriller about mobsters in 1940s Los Angeles, but first appeared opposite each other as lovers in 2011's Crazy, Stupid, Love. So when Emma heard rumours circulating about Ryan on the set of their second movie, she couldn't help but be amused by how exaggerated they were.

"(A great audition) was with Ryan for Gangster Squad. Everybody had told me, 'Watch out for Ryan, he's difficult and demanding,'" she recalled to OK! magazine. "Really? To me he was a pussycat. We've been best buddies ever since."

Now the friends have teamed up for a third time on musical La La Land, as an aspiring actress and jazz musician who fall in love in old Hollywood. It recently premiered at Venice Film Festival and has already received critical acclaim, with review site Rotten Tomatoes awarding it an impressive 100 per cent.

Having shown off her vocals before in Broadway musical Cabaret, Emma was in her element while shooting her new flick.

"La La Land was a coming home for me," she smiled. "I started acting in first grade in a musical, a little school production. I fell in love with acting because of musicals."

That doesn't mean she wasn't daunted by her performance in La La Land though, but she felt in safe hands being directed by Whiplash filmmaker Damien Chazelle. Emma also insists she'd do anything with her "beloved friend Ryan".

"He's become to me what Spencer Tracy was to Katharine Hepburn, or Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers," she gushed.

Emma also shared a few of her acting inspirations, praising late comedians like Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder, who passed away on 29 August (16) from complications of Alzheimer's disease.