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Emmy Rossum

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Emmy Rossum
Born
Emmanuelle Grey Rossum
Height5'8 (173cm)

Emmanuelle Grey "Emmy" Rossum (born September 12, 1986) is a Golden Globe-nominated American actress and singer. She is probably most well known for her leading roles in the films The Day After Tomorrow and the 2004 version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Early life

Rossum was born in New York City, as the only child to a Jewish-American family[1] — her mother a corporate photographer and her father a banker.[2] When she was three, Rossum's parents divorced and she has not remained close to her father.

At the age of seven, the choir director at Emmy’s school discovered that she had perfect intonation, which led to an audition at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.[citation needed] Upon singing Happy Birthday in 12 different keys,[3] Emmy was welcomed by the director, Elena Doria as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus.[4] Over the course of five years, Emmy sang onstage, and, along with the many other members of the chorus, with the likes of such opera greats as Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. For $5 a night, Emmy sang in five different languages, in 20 different operas such as La Boheme, Turandot, a Carnegie Hall presentation of The Damnation of Faust and A Midsummer Night's Dream.[5] among others, and worked under the direction of Franco Zeffirelli in Carmen.

By age twelve, Emmy had grown too tall for the children’s costumes, and an increasing interest in pursuing acting led to her getting an agent, and subsequent auditions for many acting roles.

Acting career

The year 1997 saw Rossum's television debut with a guest appearance on Law & Order as Alison Martin. A recurring role as the original Abigail Williams, in the long-running daytime soap As the World Turns was soon to follow (1999), as were several other minor roles in two movies and mini-series. Rossum was nominated for a Young Artist Award nomination in 1999 for Best Performance in a TV Movie for her work in the made-for-tv movie Genius, followed by roles such as the young Audrey Hepburn in the ABC TV movie The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000).

Rossum made her big screen debut in 2000’s Songcatcher, with her friend Rhoda Griffis, in which she plays an Appalachian orphan Deladis Slocumb. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, it won the Special Jury Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. For her role, Rossum received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance and also had the opportunity to sing a duet with Dolly Parton on the Songcatcher soundtrack.

In Nola (2003), Rossum played the title character, an aspiring songwriter; in her first major studio film, Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, Rossum stars as Katie Markum, the ill-fated daughter of small-business owner Jimmy Markum, played by Sean Penn. As Katie, Rossum is said to have “projected an aura of innocence that made her character's tragic death memorable and heartbreaking.[1]

Following Mystic River, Rossum played heroine Laura Chapman in the Roland Emmerich eco-disaster film The Day After Tomorrow (2004) opposite Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. After returning to New York, Rossum was the last to audition, in full costume and make-up for the coveted role of Christine Daaé in the screen adaptation of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s world-famous and longest running musical The Phantom of the Opera (2004). After an international search for talent, and having nearly missed the audition on account of a family engagement,[6] a sixteen year-old Rossum was asked to audition in person for Lloyd Webber at his home in New York. Webber felt she proved her ability to play the young opera singer who becomes the object of the phantom's obsessive love opposite Broadway singer Patrick Wilson as Raoul and actor Gerard Butler as The Phantom. For her role as Christine, Rossum received a Golden Globe nomination and many other awards.

Rossum's most recent film role was in Wolfgang Petersen’s a high-budget remake of the disaster film Poseidon, in which she stars opposite Kurt Russell as the daughter of former firefighter and New York Mayor, Jennifer Ramsey. The film received mixed reviews and flopped domestically at the box office. Rossum has expressed a desire to choose a "smaller" and "more intimate" films for future projects, in reality, however, she has reportedly put her acting career aside in favor of pursuing more on her recording career[citation needed]. Due to this she will not be appearing in any of the future films and television series as of 2007. Rossum also appeared as Juliet in a 2006 Williamstown Theatre Festival Production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.[7]

Among other projects, Rossum recorded an audio book called Our Only May Amelia by author Jennifer L. Holm. It was released in May 2000, produced by the Random House Audio Publishing Group.[8]

Recording career

Template:Future album After her role in The Phantom of the Opera, Rossum was offered several deals to record classical albums, but refused, opting to create an album of contemporary, more mainstream music. Of her music, she says “it’s pop music, but not Britney Spears bubblegum pop. I want it to have a David Gray or Annie Lennox feel. I’ve been spending up to 12 hours a day in the studio.”[3]

She cites Dolly Parton, Madonna, Cher and Barabara Streisand as some of her influences, among others. Rossum offers that "I was inspired to cut this album because I'm so frustrated listening to the radio these days. There is so little emotional honesty.”[3] Her own songs are reflective of her inner thoughts, often about relationships and “getting hurt, wanting the other person back, not wanting to be the first person to go back.”[3]

Three songs of her first album are currently available on iTunes as an EP and includes a 15 minute documentary video. The album is titled Inside Out and is scheduled to be released into stores in October 2007. Clips of her album are available on her Myspace page [1]. For the promotion of the album, Hollywood Records also feature her album's single, Slow Me Down, as part of the second volume of Girl Next compilation album, due on July 10th, 2007.

Personal life

Although she was born in New York, Emmy currently splits her time between the apartment she shares with her mother in Manhattan and Los Angeles, CA, where she is working on her album for Geffen Records.

Rossum suffers from coeliac disease, an auto-immune disorder marked by the body’s intolerance of food containing gluten.[9][failed verification]

Rossum claims that "When I was really young, I wanted to be 1,000 different things. In acting, I get to do that every six weeks.”[10] Although her secret ambition is writing, directing and producing, she believes that if she weren’t an actress, she would likely be a mathematician or an astronaut. Rossum attended Spence School in Manhattan[11], an elite girls school attended by Gwyneth Paltrow; the school gave her an ultimatum when her attendance started to slip on account of her engagements with the Met, forcing her to choose between school and music. Choosing to continue with her music, Rossum received her high school diploma when she was fifteen via online extension courses offered by Stanford University's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY).[11] Although Rossum has elected not to attend college, she has taken some extension courses through Columbia University, where she plans to someday major in English and minor in Philosophy and Art History.[citation needed]

Rossum began dating art scion David Wildenstein of the French billionaire art-dealing family in 2004. Unfortunately, although Rossum considered him to be “a great guy: really smart, a gentleman,”[3] she was in L.A. all the time, while he continued to reside in New York, causing the relationship to end in 2006. Rossum, who has been credited[who?] with her clean lifestyle and strategic ability to avoid tabloids and paparazzi, suggests that she would never date other celebrities for the sake of maintaining her positive image. Preferring to keep her personal life out of the media spotlight—a task made easier by living in her native New York—Rossum believes she is of no interest to the media as she is not “sleeping around or falling down drunk” and she is determined “not to get caught dancing on tables.”[3]

Recently[specify], Rossum was inspired by her Poseidon co-star Josh Lucas's work with YouthAIDS, and became a YouthAIDS ambassador.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1999 Genius Claire Addison made-for-television
As the World Turns Abigail Williams TV series
2000 The Audrey Hepburn Story Young Audrey Hepburn made-for-television
Songcatcher Deladis Slocumb
2001 An American Rhapsody Sheila (at 15)
2002 Passionada Vicky Amonte
2003 Mystic River Katie Markum Best Picture nominee
Nola Nola limited release
2004 The Phantom of the Opera Christine Daaé $150 Million earned worldwide
The Day After Tomorrow Laura Chapman $540 Million earned worldwide
2006 Poseidon Jennifer Ramsey $182 Million earned worldwide

Discography

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/22714/edition_id/455/format/html/displaystory.html
  2. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/1/Emmy-Rossum.html
  3. ^ a b c d e f Joffe, Jessica. “Emmy Rossum: Hollywood’s newest It Girl.” Glamour: September 2006. p 326-7, 392
  4. ^ http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/auditions/childrens_chorus.aspx
  5. ^ http://emmyrossumfan.com/biography.php
  6. ^ http://www.blackfilm.com/20041217/features/emmyrossum.shtml
  7. ^ http://www.playbill.com/news/article/101164.html
  8. ^ http://emmyrossumfan.com/otherwork.php
  9. ^ http://www.celiac.com/index.html
  10. ^ http://emmyrossumfan.com/facts.php
  11. ^ a b http://www.celebritywonder.com/html/emmyrossum.html
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