Emma Stone may be seen as the cool, sweet and down-to-earth Hollywood actress but it turns out she has a darker side - she spent her childhoods in cemeteries and thinking about death.

"There is something oddly comforting about death," she said in an interview with The Guardian. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 actress said she was "somewhat creepy," as a child growing up in Scottsdale, a desert town in Arizona which is home to more than 50 graveyards.

"I was always in cemeteries when I was a kid. I was really into spooky things like ghosts and death. I have always had an awareness of mortality. It makes you live more fully if you are aware that you only have a finite amount of time."

At only 25 years old, the actress has had a flourishing career with leading roles in The Help, The Amazing Spider-Man, Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad where she starred alongside Ryan Gosling.

She puts her early success down to this 'you only live once' mentality. "I have had an awareness of mortality since I was around six or seven," she says. "If it's not been in the forefront of my mind, it has at least been creeping over my shoulders."

She left high school at the age of 15 and moved to Los Angeles after putting together a PowerPoint presentation to persuade her parents that relocating to tinseltown would be the best thing for everyone.

'There is something oddly comforting about death' Emma Stone on her obsession with mortality