| By Fred Topel
In Theaters May 12
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When your cruise ship flips upside down and you’ve got to climb up to the bottom to escape, there are bigger things on a parent’s mind than fashion. But before catastrophe strikes, overprotective father Kurt Russell chastises his daughter (Emmy Rossum) for showing too much cleavage in her evening attire.
For the conservatively beautiful Rossum, her real life parents need not worry. “In terms of dressing, I’m not one of those girls to have belly button rings and that kind of thing,” she said. “[My character]’s a pretty feisty, opinionated kind of girl, which was fun to play. I think I am getting less shy as I get older so maybe I’m getting a little bit more like her. But my parents aren’t in the business. My dad’s a banker and my mom’s a photographer and they’re divorced and I’ve pretty much grown up with my mom. So I guess because neither of them are in the business and I’ve always done everything a kind of unconventional way - I mean, I started singing at the opera when I was seven after my music teacher sent me over there from school, and became an actress when I was 12 after I got too tall for the children’s costumes at the opera - it all just has kind of snowballed from there. As long as I continued to do my education, my parents supported me. But the things that I am conventional with are like my normal life. Things I’m unconventional with are like my schooling and the kind of work that I do.”
Since her parents are outside of Hollywood, Rossum turned to her movie father for acting advice. “I felt like a lot of our scenes are together and the relationship between our characters is quite tumultuous and I felt like I really learned a lot from his ability to improvise. Especially in a situation like this where the emotional intensity is so high and some of the dialogue that’s written on the page just doesn’t seem right, he really took his character from the inside out as did I as well. And just tried to make it as real and in the moment and spontaneous as possible.”
A disaster movie can be a tricky set, with debris falling, sets collapsing and every actor suffering some kind of injury. Rossum never allowed herself to worry. “I just tried to take it step by step, day by day and always remain calm. I knew that I was in good hands, even if other people were getting concussions.”
With a completely new lineup of character in Poseidon, Rossum did not need to research the original Poseidon Adventure to play her part. “I’ve never seen the original. I hadn’t seen it and I didn’t want to be influenced by the original material. I think I’m making a habit of that because I didn’t see the original Phantom of the Opera either. I just looked at news footage of the people who survived the tsunamis and the hurricanes and things like that. I tried to base the experiences on that and find a real level and somebody in particular whose voice I heard in a recording in a disaster I could identify with and gave me the key into the character.”
If you just can’t get enough of seeing Emmy Rossum on screen, you’ll be able to play her on your iPod next year when her first pop album “drops” early next year. The opera-trained singer is planning something a tad more mainstream for her debut.
“I just signed a record deal with Geffen and I’m recording my first solo record which is pop actually, but not bubble gum. It’s much more like David Gray, Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox which is really exciting because I’m writing a lot of it. All of the lyrics actually and I’m collaborating on the music with Glen Ballard who’s a really great record producer, so I’m really excited about that. We’re doing that right now and I think it’s a great opportunity because I don’t really live my life in the media spotlight and people don’t know that much really about me or what I think. So I’ve spent really time becoming other characters and viewing films that way. So I think this is an opportunity for me to kind of talk a little bit from my heart.”
Recording music gives Rossum a nice change of pace from acting. “I feel like I’ve spent so many years playing characters that this gives me an opportunity to get to know myself a little bit. It comes also from a frustration of when I listen to the radio in the last two years, nothing seems really emotionally honest or moving. So I kind of want to bring some of that rawness back.”
Though her training was in opera, Rossum has experience practicing other styles as well. “The first film I did was called Songcatcher and it was about country music and I ended up doing a song with Dolly Parton. So I’ve actually found that my classical foundation and just keeping your voice healthy in that way doesn’t mean that you have to sing obviously in that kind of classical way. It just means that you keep yourself healthy and you never lose your voice.”
The future of Rossum’s acting career is uncertain. She has no projects lined up for after her album is complete, but she’s in no rush to jump back in front of the camera. “I’ll probably go back to school a little bit and I’m really picky about films. I only like to do things that really come along. Sean Penn and Clint Eastwood have told me a lot that I shouldn’t feel that I need to be in the limelight or the spotlight all the time, that a career is about longevity as shown in their careers. So I really want to only do the best things and work with the best people and that’s what I strive to do.”
See Emmy Rossum in Poseidon opening May 12. |
