In One Nightstand, celebrity readers and writers join us at the blond in 11 Howard to discuss some of their favorite books, allowing us to learn about their tastes and lives in the process.
In many ways, Emmy Rossum had a completely exceptional childhood. She performed in the Metropolitan Opera’s children’s chorus from 7 years old, where she was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and sang with the late Luciano Pavarotti, and portrayed Christine in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera when she was just 16.
Beyond that, however, her youth looked a lot like any other millennial’s.
“I had a huge Spice Girls obsession,” says the actor, 39. “I was Geri Halliwell. It was probably my first pop culture obsession — that, and Celine Dion concurrently. My best friend and I — Andrew, who sang in the children’s chorus with me — would hang at his Upper West Side apartment before or after we would sing at the opera. And we would do all things Celine Dion and all things the Spice Girls.”
They even got crafty with it. “We made a board game of the Spice Girls where it was their walk through Spice World with different tour stops and different songs,” she says. “I’m pretty sure Celine was somewhere in the board game as well. We were obsessed.”
Some 30 years later, Rossum has built a career playing equally obsess-worthy characters across film and television. Her nine-season stint as Fiona Gallagher on Shameless continues to capture the imagination, including hordes of young people on TikTok who didn’t watch it the first time around.
“It’s interesting how it’s found a new life,” she says. “The characters are also sexually liberated and free, and you’re able to get very close to them because of the intensity and vulnerability that comes with so many of those scenes and those character arcs. I think that for a lot of people who grew up in big, messy, chaotic households that may have had substance problems, or just emotional chaos or poverty, there are very few shows that resonate in that way.” (Seeing the clips brings back fond memories for Rossum, too. “It’s a lot of loving the dynamics and watching the dynamics and remembering just the tenderness and the fun that we had.”)
In recent years, Rossum has spent more time developing shows under her Composition 8 banner, including Angelyne — a 2022 co-production with her husband Sam Esmail, with whom she has two children — and 2024’s Three Women, starring Shailene Woodley. Her latest, Furious on Hulu, follows a former NYPD detective-turned-FBI agent (Rossum) who is tracking a female serial killer (Lola Petticrew) seeking retribution for being trafficked as a child.
“The two female leads here are two sides of the same coin,” says Rossum. “Both women have been victims of violence. Both are looking for justice, and you could argue one’s looking for vengeance in unorthodox ways. Both are very underestimated by society and therefore have to and are able to work outside the normal lines of morality in the gray area. It was funny reading the scripts, because I was like, ‘Am I really identifying with the serial killer now? Am I hoping she kills all these people?’”
Rossum is a self-admitted big believer in doing her homework, and trained for her turn on the show with former and current FBI agents and NYPD detectives to “really understand what it was like on a cellular level.” And her brand has remained strong since her teen years, even attending a seance to prep for her role in 2004’s Phantom.
“The character is haunted by who she thinks is her dead father,” she says. “I didn’t have a father growing up. So the yearning for something missing was certainly kind of adjacent to a sadness that I had inside and a yearning that I had inside. But I also went and had an experience at a spiritualist society, a kind of seance that I went to, to kind of see what that was like and had an experience there that was interesting and surprising and certainly helped give me a concrete memory of something as I was going into shooting that.”
Another part of her preparation involves getting closer to the words. “Reading is a huge part of my job, and being analytical, but most of what I read is in script or play form,” she says. “So much of my job is filling in the blanks on the big white piece of paper around the dialogue and around the stage direction. I love to read a book, because it fills in so much of the work that I have to do to create the edges and the girth of the character. I love to lose myself in a book.”
Keep reading to discover four of Rossum’s favorites.
Her first selection is Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy’s debut novel, which follows Waldo, a 17-year-old Alaskan high school student who begins an affair with her married creative writing teacher, Mr. Korgy. “I’m always interested in other creatives,” Rossum says. “Jennette is an actress, a director, and now a writer, and so I’m very interested in people who find their way into their voice in other ways.”
Because Rossum has been performing since childhood, the dynamic between the two characters particularly resonated with her. “I was really taken by the way that someone believing in you creatively can change your life,” she says. “It becomes very complicated for the two of them. But I was really taken by the way that the character seems confused as to whether she actually wants this or just wants to be wanted.”
Her second choice is Hannah Pittard’s We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind Of], a 2023 experimental account of discovering her husband, Patrick, was having an affair with her best friend, Trish. “I thought this book was laugh-out-loud funny, moving, very vulnerable,” she says.
Rossum’s Book Recommendations and Insights on Life
Actress Rossum recently shared some of her favorite books and insights on life in a video. She mentioned how she enjoys the absurdity of life, a trait she attributes to a book she read.
One of the books she recommended is “Blood Test” by Charles Baxter, a dark comedy that explores the idea of genetic predisposition to violence. Rossum found the book both funny and dark, grounded in absurdity, which she enjoys in her reading choices. The novel’s themes of breaking free from one’s circumstances resonated with her experiences on the set of Shameless, where characters navigated economically depressed environments with humor and loyalty.
Another book close to Rossum’s heart is the classic children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. This timeless tale about a stuffed rabbit’s desire to become real holds a special place in Rossum’s heart. She finds comfort in the story, especially during times when she needs a reminder of self-worth and love.
In the video, Rossum reflects on the characters in The Real Housewives of Rhode Island and how they mirror dynamics in her own life. She sees parallels between a character in the show who is perceived as an instigator rather than a mediator and her own friend Trish. These observations highlight Rossum’s ability to draw connections between fiction and reality.
Overall, Rossum’s book recommendations and insights shed light on her love for stories that explore the complexities of life with humor and absurdity. These books have not only entertained her but also provided her with valuable lessons and perspectives on navigating the challenges of the world.
