Emma Stone explains why her “Dirty Dancing” jump with Ryan Gosling caused a “full meltdown”

Thanks to the success of Crazy, Stupid, Love and now La La Land (we’ll forget about Gangster Squad, it’s fine), Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have become Hollywood’s top romantic duo. But as Stone herself revealed on The Graham Norton Show on Friday, January 13th, their most romantic — and most famous — onscreen moment together was actually a a holy terror behind the scenes…so much so, in fact, that Stone eventually had to call on a stunt double to sub in.

At Norton’s behest, Stone recalled the famous Dirty Dancing scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love where Gosling’s character, Cal, catches her character, Hannah, mid-flight, in homage to the Patrick Swayze-Jennifer Grey scene from the ’80s classic.

It looked ridiculously sexy and oh-so-perfect onscreen, but in reality, trying to film the damn thing nearly sent Stone to the psych ward — and with really, really good reason.

"When I was about seven years old, I was in gymnastics class, and I was on these parallel bars that are about six feet off the ground," Stone began. "I was standing on the top of the bars, and the teacher was holding me by the ankles. Somehow or other, she let go ... I felt myself beginning to tip forward, and I put my arms in like this, and I fell six feet to the ground, and I broke both my arms at the same time."

First thought: Yes, OK, that sounds like a waking nightmare, and one that would certainly cause problems 15-ish years after the fact.

Second thought: Stone’s fears definitely did not come through onscreen.

“Years later, I knew we were going to do the Dirty Dancing lift — what I don’t know, however, that I have an internalized phobia of being lifted over someone’s head at the height of about six feet,” Stone continued. “So I run to do the lift, and Ryan lifts me over his head and … what did I do, Ryan?”

“I’ve never had this happen, but I imagine if a possum fell out of a tree, landed on my head and tried to scratch my eyes out, it would be something similar,” Gosling hilariously deadpanned.

“It was a full meltdown,” Stone added, with Gosling remembering that Stone “crawled in bed and watched Labyrinth” to cope.

“She was like, ‘I have to go watch Labyrinth,’” Gosling recalled with a laugh.

Hey man, if anything can make a movie star of Stone’s caliber stop crying and get down to business, it makes sense that it’s David Bowie (and his famously tight pants) as the Goblin King.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXzXexojT4?feature=oembed

Thankfully, a double was able to step in, so both Stone’s mental health — and the uber-romantic scene — were saved.