Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling on Oscar contender 'La La Land'

This image released by Lionsgate shows Ryan Gosling, left, and Emma Stone in a scene from, 'La La Land.' (Dale Robinette / Lionsgate)

TORONTO -- Emma Stone has one Oscar nomination to her name and seems poised for another with her wondrous turn in Damien Chazelle's new song-and-dance film "La La Land."

Yet, like her "La La Land" character, there was a time when she was rejected or completely ignored during auditions in Los Angeles and had her heart set on parts that didn't come through.

"The one in the movie that I probably related to the most was the callback scene where she goes in there and it starts -- and then it's cut off and then they say, 'That's enough,"' Stone said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "La La Land" won the People's Choice Award.

London, Ont.-native Ryan Gosling, her co-star in "La La Land" and 2011's "Crazy, Stupid, Love," also felt the same rejection.

"The (scene) at the beginning was actually Ryan's story that he had told Damien," said Stone. "He was in an audition and had to cry and in the middle of his crying scene the casting director answered the phone.

"And then she was like, 'Keep going,' once she got off the phone and he was like, 'Oh, OK."'

In theatres Dec. 25, "La La Land" stars Stone as a fledgling Hollywood actress who falls for a jazz pianist, played by Gosling. While his career takes off, she finds herself still struggling to get parts, going from audition to audition in her car that serves as a makeshift makeup/script prep room.

Stone said she also used her car to prepare for auditions.

"I had this really, really disgusting habit when I was like 16 and was auditioning, where I would put on makeup in the car and then I would have nowhere to wipe my hand," Stone recalled.

"This is just nasty to tell you, but I had nowhere to wipe my hands and I had a Volkswagen Beetle and they have soft ceilings, so I would wipe my hands on the ceiling and there would just be these streaks ... of makeup.

"So my memory of auditions is just this disgusting ceiling -- and a lot of chicken fries from Burger King in between, like eating all this fast food in the car and prepping for the next thing."

Chazelle, who got an Oscar nomination for penning "Whiplash," wrote and directed the ode to old Hollywood, which has already earned a slew of awards nominations. Among them is seven Golden Globe nods, including one for Stone and one for Gosling.

Chazelle shot long, live, elaborate takes for the musical numbers, including one that packs a punch right at the beginning -- on a freeway.

He wanted to throw the most extreme version of the movie at viewers first, "so that really anyone who's not OK with that has a moment to go catch the other movie and then the rest of the people can stay," he said.

"Then I think the movie gets more realistic as it becomes more about the characters and less about this world of 'La La Land."'

Gosling learned to play piano and dance in more classical styles than those of his days on "The Mickey Mouse Club."

They wanted the audience to feel as if the characters in the musical numbers "were the same people that you'd just been watching in the scene beforehand," Gosling said, "and that maybe that these things could add a different dimension to those characters but that they felt like the same people."

Stone starred in "Cabaret" on Broadway but "singing is a little trickier with this, this voice," she admitted in her trademark husky tones.

Nevertheless, Stone still finds herself singing the film's songs.

"It is embarrassing how much I sing 'La La Land' songs in the shower," she said.

"I love the music so much. When I heard ... the love theme, 'Do do do do, do do do,' that goes through the whole movie, Justin Hurwitz, the composer, just captured it perfectly. That just sounds like the theme of two people in love. It's so beautiful."