For a young lady who trades on easy-going charm, Emma Stone’s inexorable rise over the past 12 months seems to be the result of precision plotting. This is the actress who, at age 15, gave her mother and father a Power Point presentation to persuade them to allow her move to LA.

When her agents continued sending the naturally blonde Stone for entirely inappropriate cheerleader-type roles, she dyed her hair brown. Then when she was cast in her first film, Superbad, and turned herself into a redhead; anything to stand out of the crowd.

Her “rock bottom” moment arrived when she tried out for the NBC sci-fi show Heroes, only to overhear the casting directors tell the girl before her: On a scale of 1 to 10, you are an 11. Out of the room came Hayden Panettiere, who wound up with the role of cheerleader Claire Bennet, and Stone went home, embarrassed and mortified.

Ever since then, she’s slowly watched her anonymity disappear, a process she’s still trying to get used to.