September 2004 By Philip Berk
Forget the Phantom!
The star of the movie is Emmy Rossum.
You’ve seen her as Sean Penn’s daughter in Mystic River and as Jake Gyllenhaal’s girlfriend in the Day after Tomorrow
But she’ll blow you away in Joel Schumacher’s long awaited Phantom of the Opera.
When she’s on screen you can’t take your eyes off her.
Forget the crashing chandelier.
The thing you’ll remember most is that angelic face and the beautiful sounds that emanate from her. She literally sings the part.
If only she were born fifty years earlier when Hollywood knew how to showcase talent like hers in films like Show Boat (and later) Oklahoma and Carousel.
On screen she’s a sensation, and off screen she’s a revelation.
Smart, intelligent, even brilliant — I can’t think of anyone her age giving a better press conference.
When she arrives I’m unable to contain my enthusiasm and she’s moved to tears, but suddenly she’s no longer the child I interviewed a year ago; she’s a young lady, taller, thinner, and mature beyond her years.
So how did this ethereal unknown land the role of a lifetime?
“I probably was at an advantage because I had never seen the show. I had no preconceptions of who this girl was or how she had been portrayed previously. So I came to her totally fresh and developed my own interpretation from my imagination because this girl couldn’t be more different than me. I am happy, sociable, rational, and this woman is very lonely, emotionally tortured.”
What was the audition process like?
“I first had to pass Joel Schumacher and the acting audition before I got to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber. And I did that at his apartment in New York, It was a very rainy, stormy day, and I was just floored, entering the most magnificent apartment I could ever imagine. There were windows on the world. and it was just amazing. After I walked in, I started to vocalize with the accompanist. Andrew wasn’t there yet. Suddenly he walked in. He didn’t say hello or introduce himself. He just sat down in front of me and said, Shall we? There’s something very welcoming about Shall we? like we’re all doing it together. And knowing he was just sitting there watching I thought to myself, Okay, this is my one shot. I better stand up and do it. I didn’t introduce myself, I nodded to the accompanist ad did the two biggest numbers in the show ‘Think of Me’ and ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’, and then he stood up and said, ‘That was great. I’m Andrew.”
So what’s happened since shooting ended six months ago?.
Carefully she responds, “I lost myself so much in the character — it was difficult going to those places. I didn’t realize how much those feelings were going to affect me. So it took me quite a while to come out of it. In the meantime I’ve been going to college again, I’m studying at Columbia university.I took art history.”
Suddenly she lightens up!
“My mom’s happy. I got an A. But I have been reading a lot of scripts and being careful about what I want to do next.I want to do something a lot smaller and more intimate. I’ve been trying to develop a movie myself based on a book about a woman athlete that I read and was really inspired by. It’s a story that really moves me.”
What was it like being on the set with the most successful musical composer in Broadway history? Was it intimidating?
“I don’t think it was intimidating at all. Because I felt he had given me his blessing the first time I met him. I remember before I did the screen test, I said to him, ‘I have a confession to make,’ and he said, ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘I’ve never seen the show.’ and he replied, ‘Fantastic!’ He wanted the character to come directly from me, from my heart. He didn’t want me to be influenced by anything.”
What is he like?
“He’s a very shy man. He’s most comfortable sitting behind a piano. There’s such an amazing energy that comes out of him when he’s behind a piano. He can come up with the most beautiful melodies you’ve ever heard. It’s magic.”
Did he come up with suggestions?
“We would sing back and forth. We worked together and it was interesting, which I’ve just thought of a moment ago, I wanted to show an arc in her character from being a young woman to becoming a more mature, sexual woman. I wanted to mirror that in the vocal. So in ‘Think 0f Me’ our choice was to make it pure and crisp, and then with ‘Point of no Return’ it’s much richer and darker, and that was a conscious choice we made together.”
How was the singing done?
“We first prerecorded everything. Then we would shoot the scene using the playback we had recorded. But because we didn’t always anticipate the acting choices we made, we went back and sang to the picture so we could mirror the crying tones and the softness of certain lines.”
Is anyone in her family (she’s an only child) talented?
“No one can remotely carry a tune,” she laughs.
So where did that voice come from?
“I kind of came out of the womb singing an aria,’ she jokes. Then continues. “Our house was always filled with music. Classical music. And because I was always singing, my parents sent me to music school when I was two. Then when I was six or seven, singing in a choir at my private school, which was very tony and chi chi, the director told my mother I had perfect intonation, and my mother went, ‘What’s that? Is that bad?’ She suggested I audition at the Metropolitan Opera where they accept a select group of children who they train. So I went and auditioned. They asked me to sing Happy Birthday because it’s a difficult song to sing — there’s an octave leap — and she played it in twenty different keys, and then she said, ‘Welcome to the Opera.’ It was something I attended every single day for five years. It became a passion. I sang in all the great productions but at some point it seemed a logical transition for me to get into acting. so I decided to become an actress. I told my mom. She looked up one voice coach, and I’ve been with her ever since.”
She first gained attention when she sang in Songcatcher. A small role in Mystic River preceded a more important one in The Day after Tomorrow, but after Phantom tomorrow will never be the same.
In anticipation of which she’s acquired Mel Gibson’s publicist; who also handles Beyonce.
When did she have time for a normal life?
“It was my choice to join the Metropolitan..It was so much fun. We were getting $5 a night; so it didn’t really seem like a job. And in those huge Zefferelli productions the horses onstage were paid $150 a night so there’s that moment when you realize you’re valued less than the livestock. But being next to Placido Domingo, there’s so much creative energy.“
How have her parents prepared her to experience the real world?
“I grew up in a very loving environment. My parents taught me by example. They really loved me and encouraged me in everything I did.”
And to handle relationships?
“I think that’s something everyone has to define for themselves. I think I’ve learned a lot from the characters I’ve played. Christine has to deal with two totally different relationships. One that is chaotic, passionate, and creative. An artistic relationship with a man who is destructive. That’s not the kind of relationship I want. On the other hand she’s found her Price Charming in her childhood sweetheart, Raoul, who’s kind and wonderful, and who loves and supports her. He’s affluent and handsome. He’s perfect. I’m not sure I’ll ever find anyone as perfect as Patrick Wilson.”
He’s available!
“Andrew Lloyd Weber calls him the annoyingly perfect Patrick Wilson because he can do everything and he’s really that wonderful.”
How about Gerry Butler who plays the Phantom?
“I remember the first time I met Gerry at the screen test. At the time I was so focused and concentrated, I don’t even remember it. It was so elaborate with two hours of hair and make up, a full crew, and a crane, and Joel was in the corner screaming action, and in retrospect it was very much Christine in the spotlight and the Phantom lurching in the back ground. I remember after completing the screen test, he was there with a black coat smoking a cigarette in the alley way. and I remember thinking how much it mirrored our characters.”
And they never spoke?
“The first time we actually spoke to each other was in a meeting with Joel before I got the part; we talked about what our characters were feeling to show Joel what we were capable of. Gerry obviously had the part, For me that was kind of a screen test.”
Does she have a boyfriend and is she dating?
“Maybe,” she blushingly replies, and then adds, “A girl’s got to have some secrets. I’m keeping the mystery.”
And her favorite songs?
“Something by Outkast or Asher.”
Is she serious?
“I definitely started very classical, when I was at the opera it was all about classical music. But now my tastes have become more eclectic. I like R&B, rap, pop, and of course classical as well.’
Does she ever wonder if she’s born under a lucky star?
Not everyone her age gets to work with Clint Eastwood and Andrew Lloyd Weber.
“The reason things may have worked out in my favor is because I’m the kind of person when I make a commitment I give 150 percent. I don’t do anything half way, and that’s very important to me.”