Emmy Rossum Talks Playing Tom Holland's Mom Despite Being Just 10 Years Older

In real life, Emmy Rossum may only be about 10 years older than her on-screen son Tom Holland in Apple TV+'s new series The Crowded Room, but that didn't hold the actress back when it came to her performance. Ahead of the Friday, June 9 premiere of The Crowded Room, Rossum told Entertainment Tonight that despite the age gap, their casting "made sense" to her when she first read the script. 

"Candy's a super young mom, she's almost a child in her own right when she becomes pregnant at age 16," explained the 36-year-old Shameless alum. "You watch as I age from 25 to 35, which is actually younger than I am now." While Rossum may only be a decade older than Holland, who just turned 27 on June 1, the actress "fell in love with the relationship between mother and son and the closeness and everything that they're grieving in later episodes."

"I was so taken with the series and really just loved all my scenes, especially with young Danny," Rossum added of actor Zachary Golinger, who plays the younger version of Holland's Danny Sullivan. "Our relationship was so beautiful and so I knew everything that we had that I had lost in the scenes with Tom. [It] was really fun." Rossum, who is also a mother of two with her husband, Sam Esmail, also shared that the role brought up a lot of feelings for her.

"Finding out during our last couple episodes that I was pregnant with my son, who was born 8 weeks ago, it brings up a lot about our imperfections as people, the unrealistic expectations that we place on ourselves, and how we are really just a product of our own upbringings," she told the outlet. "I think the show has a lot to say about love and empathy and understanding of those who are different than we are."

The Crowded Room is inspired by a true story and based on the 1981 novel The Minds of Billy Milligan. The series follows Holland's Danny, a shy and anti-social teen who is arrested after a shooting at the Rockefeller Center in 1979. Through discussions with investigator Rya Goodwin, played by Amanda Seyfried, Danny comes to a series of insights. The Crowded Room premieres Friday, June 9 on Apple TV+.