GlobalGrind: How was the auditioning process?
Emmy Rossum: I only had to audition once. But I got the script a couple months before we went into production. I was still shooting season 2 of Shameless, and it was so different than what I was doing at the time that I just loved it. It was this bad girl character that had so much fun with being evil. And was so glamorous, kind of campy, over the top that I really wanted to audition. Then, I read the first book, and kind of got more into her and her backstory. It fleshed out the reason for the curse, and all this other stuff you had to know; kind of the rules for the story. Then, I went into the audition – it was a 14 page audition – it was like from the time that my character gets out of the car at the track field to the end of the autumn harvest dinner when you get sucked out of the room. It was like this big epic audition scene, and I remember that I practiced it so many times because it was such a long scene. I was saying it in my sleep the night before the audition, and I went in and really felt as I was doing I’m totally nailing this. I’m totally getting this part. And on the last page I had a whole monologue that I completely blanked. I was so into how well I was doing that I forgot all of the words and blanked. I was just staring at the casting director…it was funny. I guess I did okay because she fed me the line, and then I got it. And I was back on it. After I got the part, Richard sent me this nice e-mail: “Congrats! You’re our Readly…we’re excited, and I just wanted you to see what you did to get the part.” So he sent me the audition tape, and I got to see it. It was really good until the last moment where I completely fell apart…I made some weird facial noises and I had this look of desperation; sweat coming out of my forehead. But I guess they knew I wanted it, so I got that part.
Can you talk a little bit about the costumes? You wear some really beautiful gowns in the movie. Did you have any input in that?
A lot of it had to do with Richard and Jeffrey Kurlen – our costume designer – who’s worked with Woody Allen on so many different amazing projects. And it was definitely different than it is in the book. In the book, she’s much more like a punk harujuku girl in daisy dooks with a lollipop. In this we’re adding a level of – because she’s travelled all over the world – a worldly, throwback sophistication to her, which is right in line with my sensibilities. But I actually had nothing to do with it. It was really fun, and the only thing I really collaborated on, was the hair and makeup. Also, I was in charge of the manicure.
You like playing bad girls?
I guess you would think from my recent choices. It’s fun for me to add a humanity and emotional understanding to these kind of characters. I think it would be easy to just play them as one-note evil, or like my character on Shameless, as just the bad girl from the bad neighborhood. But for me it’s interesting to add a backstory, to add a sensitivity that will hopefully allow the audience to get on the bad side with me. Because it’s kind of more fun over there!
Richard was talking about the spinning scene, and how some people got nauseous. Can you tell us how you were feeling during that scene?
I didn’t think I was going to have a problem. But because everyone said I was going to have a problem, I took dromamene – it should be called, sleep medication – but apparently it’s for seasickness. It should be Ambien, because I was really falling asleep, the same time I was trying to act in 6-inch heels, while strapped to a spinning room. So it was definitely a different experience for me, but it was very fun. It added to the level of…I felt like it added to the level of insanity that was actually happening emotionally in the scene between these two characters.
Was that one of the more challenging scenes to shoot?
Yes, because of all the elements. But the most challenging scene for me to shoot was at the end, because I was in that massive dress with that tight horrendous corset – basically, in a turtleneck dress with all these petticoats in a 120 degrees – the dresses were so large that to transport me in Emma Thompson to the set from the trailers that they had to take all the rows of chairs and seating out of a 15-passenger van, and seat us on individual apple boxes: One per van! And it was a 120 degrees, so we would get in the van in air conditioning, and get out and do the scene. I didn’t know my body had so much water in it. There was just sweat dripping down my body and my legs. It was just vile. On top of that, I would take off the petticoats at the end of the day. On one lovely occasion, a vey hairy spider crawled out my under carriage.
There’s a lot of British actors that have such a knack for American accents that once you meet them, you’re kind of shocked that they’re British. I’m sure you get a lot of people that are shocked that you aren’t British?
Yes!
It must happen a lot.
It does because of Phantom. But nope, I’m New York. Although, my mom was actually raised in the Bronx, and originally from Dureller, Louisiana, which is kind of near St. Francis ville – a wonderful location where we were shooting – I felt like I was in my mom’s old hood.
You obviously have a knack for accents.
I think that’s because I grew up singing at the Opera. We would have to sing in different languages, and train our ear in that way. I think I got used to it that way.
And you just put out a CD of 40’s standards?
Yeah. That’s the kind of music that I grew up with, and grew up hearing. My mom was a single mom, and she would leave to travel to work – she was a photographer – to take pictures a lot of the time. So she would leave all these records for me to play – the music she grew up with – when she was home she would sing these lullabies to me. Oldies were a big part of my youth.
You never rebelled against your parents’ music?
I liked Spice Girls for a hot second! Otherwise, no. I wanted to ziggy, zig, ah.
How does your hair work in the movie? Obviously, you didn’t chop off all your hair in the movie.
It was all wigs.
Wigalicious!
It was very wigalicious! I actually dyed my own hair blonde because we actually thought we’d use my own hair. But then, it turned out to be completely wigged. So I dyed it blonde for nothing. It kind of put me in the headspace, even on my days off, of being a character unlike Shameless – which is a character I’ve been doing back-to-back for a few seasons. For me, it was almost like a wake-up call for another thing that can get me into character: Changing how I dress and look in everyday life to kind of influence my way of getting into the character. I might use that, and change my appearance in the future. Even, if it’s not need for the movie.
Let’s talk about the relationship between Readly and Link. Your scenes doesn’t have much dialogue.
Who needs dialogue when you have heat! We had a lot of fun. In fact, we decided to go on a couple foe dates…one of the first nights that we were in New Orleans, we decided to explore New Orleans together, one night after rehearsal. And we were just walking around Bourbon St., that area. Then we walked out to the Mississippi. It started kind of lightly misty and lightning and it was very romantic. We’re both thinking it’s good. We’re both thinking we’re totally building chemistry right now. And we decided to b a little rebellious…dangle our legs over the mIssissipi. I did that. We were kind of sitting on these wood beams on the other area. It was misty and I’m snapping all these pictures on my iphone because of how romantic it was. Then there was this thing out of the corner of my eye that started to scurry away. I was like “Oh how cute. Look at that little bunny frabbiyt!
