[IMG:L]Imagine our surprise when, while enjoying a juicy ribeye at L.A.’s swanky steakhouse The Lodge, we heard a familiar voice above the dinnertime din and discovered actress-singer Emmy Rossum in the middle of a gaggle of friends–including her boyfriend, Interscope A&R exec Justin Siegel and the infamous gossip blogger Perez Hilton–celebrating the release of her new EP Inside Out.
The coltish 21-year-old star, an operatic wunderkind best known for her big screen turns in Phantom of the Opera (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination) and Poseidon, graciously invited Hollywood.com to join her in her leather booth and chat about her passion project, in which she sheds her classical roots and lets down her hair with an innovative sound and songs that came, as the EP’s title suggest, from deep within.
Hollywood.com: We’ve talked about how hard you’ve been working on your songs for a while. How excited are you finally have some of them out there?
Emmy Rossum: I’m so excited! This is like our celebration. Tonight I found out I was number 14 on iTunes’ overall albums–and number three on the pop charts. So I’m just beyond excited. The whole idea for the iTunes bundle was kind of experimental. Just to get the music out there and get people’s feedback. It’s been an overwhelming, long day. I’m really happy.
HW: iTunes seems like the way to go to build buzz these days…
ER: Yeah. I mean, for me the record label wanted to wait to go with the music, until like the end of the year. I said, “I’ve finished it and I really want to share it with people!” I wanted to get it out there as soon as possible and the only way to do that is to do it. I put these on iTunes, three songs and a documentary. They all kind of spiraled from there.
HW: This has been a real labor of love for you. What was it like to go from singing other people’s songs to really being invested in the music yourself, and then singing?
ER: It’s the most liberating, willing, scary, wonderful experience. Because I’m so used to singing other people’s songs, saying other people’s lines in films as characters, and playing so many different characters, you almost lose who you really are. When you’re at this age, where you’re struggling to figure out who you are anyway, this is really a good time for me to sit down and figure that out. And to be able to and have a platform and the freedom to really be able to speak my mind and say things I care about and expose myself in that way. Because I’ve always been a little bit press shy and I’ve never really hung in the tabloids or gone to clubs.
[IMG:R]HW: You’re not that girl.
ER: No. I’m not. I go to like a premiere and maybe a quiet dinner with my friends and nobody’s waiting outside. I think that was an exciting thing for me was I wouldn’t expose myself to that kind of tell all, self-indulgent, kind of confessional way. This is much more of an exposing and bearing of myself and my soul, in an artistic way.
HW: After doing this, what did you discover about yourself?
ER: I think I’m a very loyal person, a very passionate person and I hope that I’m great, to do this kind of record. It’s some semi-autobiographical [material]. It kind of talks about a lot of things I’ve never spoken about publicly, in terms of my family and love, unfaithfulness and a lot of different things. I think I’m a very kind, loyal friend.
HW: What was the hardest thing to really dig deep and express yourself?
ER: Going into the record, I knew I had no base song, that I wanted to be completely open to anything that happened to me. I just wanted to be really open with it. I think that was a difficult process. There were moments in the making of the record, even still, where I think, oh, should I have said that? And how much should I have said and how much shouldn’t I have said? Will I ever really have that piece of me that I can hold that’s just mine, that doesn’t belong to anybody else? Because in this sort of media-driven world, people feel that the celebrities, that their idols, belong to them. They judge you based on what you look like and who you’re with. No one should be able to say really what you do or who you’re with, except you and your friends and your family. At the same time, you do have a responsibility to uphold, and be somebody that is hopefully a good role model, when you go into society. I think all of those things I thought about–and then forgot. Then it was like, you know what? Let me consider all of this and then say what I want to say. I’d just bury myself in the studio, write everything and then edit later. And I didn’t really end up editing anything. I just kind of put it all out there and felt this is me and I did nothing to be ashamed of and put them in and I’m going to show everything.
HW: And no regrets at this point?
ER: I’m completely happy. I love the way the record sounds. I wanted to experiment with the voice and how much you can do with the voice. I think that I really succeeded by doing a lot of like strings, the piano or a guitar, like vocal things, as well as percussion and drums. I made a lot of staccato sounds and chopped it up and made a meal of it. It’s just a lot of fun and creative and I think that it’s all me. I hope people like it.
HW: Your initial musical fan base most likely best knows your work from Phantom of the Opera–the Broadway score and your operatic background–how do you think they’ll respond to your new material, which is quite unique and different?
ER: This is not what they’re expecting. If anyone thinks Phantom of the Opera, they’ll think I’m going to do a Josh Groban record–and that’s cool, I love Josh, he’s one of my good friends. But for me, I felt like I’ve lived in that classic musical world for so long. Since leaving the opera, I’ve been exposed to so many different kinds of music: electronica, jazz, country music, and I really felt like I wanted to do something that was a hip and young and fresh, something the people could really live with. I didn’t want a record that was going to feel like “Oh, that one song is really good on that record.” I wanted it to be like a story. Some of them were like “I love that record.” There were like seven songs on that record I love, and I just do. A record you can dance to and cry to. I just wanted it to be a complete experience. I don’t know if I succeeded but that’s what I was going for.
[IMG:L]HW: Once you came out of that hard work tunnel, did life kind of open up for you? Did you feel better after working through all that?
ER: It was a cathartic experience, definitely. I felt like I’d done something that I really felt proud of and something that I could really call my own. Whereas in a film, you’re just one of many pieces of the puzzle. I have so much respect, even more than I did, for directors and writers and how much control they have and how much pressure they have. I felt that a lot, to deliver a record that you wrote a lot of. A lot of pressure but I came out of it. When I got like the thumbs up from Jimmy Lovine and the thumbs up from Ron Behr, it’s like “Whew! Okay, now I can breathe and enjoy it and feel happy about it.” It was honestly one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had working on something. Just to be in a happy place and feel like you’re working on something you really believe in and I’m ready to go do another film.
HW: How are things personally? Everything on a good even keel in your life?
ER: Yeah! I’m happy. I’m living between New York and L.A. and everything’s good. I have all my good friends with me and everything’s good.
