Emmy Rossum's Next Big TV Role Revealed

By Stephen Andrew

Emmy Rossum has landed a big new TV role, years after leaving her hit series Shameless. It's been announced that the actress will be starring in an upcoming anthology series for Apple TV, titled The Crowded Room. According to Deadline, the show also co-stars Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried, and is written and executive produced by Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), with Holland also serving as an executive producer. The Crowded Room will explore the lives of individuals living with mental health issues and focus on how they navigate life and relationships. 

The first 10-episode season is based partly on Daniel Keyes' biography The Minds of Billy Milligan, as well as on Goldsman's own personal experience. Holland will be playing a character named Danny Sullivan, who is loosely based on Milligan, the first person to be acquitted of a crime due to dissociative identity disorder, previously referred to as multiple-personality disorder. Rossum is playing Candy, Danny's mother, who struggles with helping take care of her son and "dreams of salvation in the form of someone else." Lastly, Seyfried is playing Rya, "a clinical psychologist faced with the most challenging case of her career."

Rossum announced her exit from Shameless in August 2018, just before the premiere of the series' ninth season. She took to Facebook to make the announcement, writing in a post that "the opportunity to play Fiona has been a gift." She went on to say, "There are few characters — female or otherwise — as layered and dynamic. She is a mother lion, fierce, flawed and sexually liberated. She is injured, vulnerable, but will never give up. She is living in an economic depression, but refuses to be depressed. She is resourceful. She is loyal. She is brave."

Rossum later opened up about the decision to leave the show — which she starred on since its debut in 2011 — confessing, "The way I look at it is that the end of one thing is the beginning of something else. I couldn't be more thrilled to spend time writing, directing, and seeing what other characters I want to play. It's both scary and wonderful."

Ahead of The Crowded Room, fans will be able to catch Rossum in Peacock's Angelyne. The show is about the enigmatic Hollywood model, and pop-culture figure Angelyne and is based on a Hollywood Reporter feature about her, written by senior writer Gary Baum. The show suffered some setbacks due to COVID-19 but is currently scheduled to debut sometime in 2022.

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