Jesse Eisenberg Brings Emma Stone to Tears During Emotional Speech: 'I Am Riding the Coattails of Her Goodwill'

• Jesse Eisenberg gave a shoutout to his "fairy godmother" Emma Stone while accepting the award for best screenplay at the 40th Independent Spirit Awards

• Stone could be seen getting visibly emotional from her seat in the audience as the A Real Pain writer/director/actor sang her praises

• Kieran Culkin, who costarred with Eisenberg in A Real Pain, also won big at the ceremony, in the best supporting performance category

Jesse Eisenberg is shouting out his special relationship with Emma Stone.

After winning best screenplay during the 40th Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, the A Real Pain writer/director/actor used a large part of his acceptance speech to rave about longtime collaborator and friend Stone, who was a producer on the film.

"I met Emma when we were in Zombieland together in 2009, and since then, I write little magazine articles and little things on McSweeney's, and she's the only person — I'm including my mom here — who would take little screenshots of it over the last 15 years and send me things like, 'This is such a funny line!' " Eisenberg, 41, said from the stage on Saturday, Feb. 22.

He went on to say Stone, 36, is "the most famous person I know, and yet also the most dedicated to encouraging me as a writer."

"I think about her not as my producer, but like a fairy godmother — that I am riding the coattails of her goodwill," Eisenberg told the crowd.

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For the Social Network star, "I think it's so important that somebody like her, who is so unbelievably successful in mainstream movies, looks for people like me and Julio [Torres], and Jane [Schoenbrun], to try to produce our movies with all the goodwill that she's amassed so rightly and deservedly over the last several years."

"Thanks, Emma," he concluded, as Stone could be seen getting visibly emotional in the audience.

In addition to producing behind the scenes of A Real Pain, Stone and her husband Dave McCary produced Eisenberg's directorial debut, 2022's When You Finish Saving the World.

In the press room following his win, Eisenberg was asked if he'd ever like to write something for Stone to act in, to which he responded, "Every single person in the world who opens a Final Draft folder wants to write something for Emma Stone. She's the greatest in every genre. So yeah."

But "I tend not to think of writing from the perspective of what actor could do it. More so just like characters that interest me," he added, joking, "At some point I'll probably have the presumption to write something for her and it'll be a very awkward conversation where she tells me she's busy."

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Related: 2025 Indie Spirit Awards: See the Complete List of Winners

Stone also got a shoutout from host Aidy Bryant during her monologue at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, where she joked, "Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone is here. Emma was a producer on four nominated projects tonight, but even more importantly, her hair is short now. Emma, it looks so good. You're starting to piss me off."

During the evening, A Real Pain also took home a best supporting performance win for Kieran Culkin, who has swept this awards season in supporting categories and is considered an Oscar frontrunner at the upcoming March 2 ceremony.

As for his bond with Stone, Eisenberg told PEOPLE back in October 2024 about first meeting her during the production of Zombieland, "I remember just thinking, 'This is, like, the smartest person I've ever met.' She's so brilliant."

"She's an incredible producer," he continued. "It's hard to describe, because what a producer does is a little bit amorphous, but I'll just give some examples: She read the script and gave me the best note I got on my script of a thing that I could rewrite. She's on marketing calls with the movie studio about how to present this movie to the world."

Eisenberg went on to say that "we all just kind of sit back and let her, you know, take charge," adding, "She's super bright, she's passionate as hell and she's a great friend."

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