The Crowded Room: How Pregnancy Changed Emmy Rossum's Approach To Playing Tom Holland's Mom

Emmy Rossum might only be ten years older than her on-screen son Tom Holland in "The Crowded Room," but according to the "Shameless" veteran, this is far from a problem — and her recent experiences with motherhood helped inform her performance as Candy in the Apple TV+ drama.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight about the new crime miniseries, Rossum discussed her role as Candy Sullivan, mother to suspected criminal Danny Sullivan (Holland), and revealed that she found out she was going to become a mom just as filming wrapped up. "Finding out during our last couple episodes that I was pregnant with my son, who was born eight 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 said. "I think the show has a lot to say about love and empathy and understanding of those who are different than we are."

Rossum and her husband, "Mr. Robot" creator Sam Esmail, welcomed her second baby — a boy — in April of 2023, not long before "The Crowded Room" was set to premiere. Considering how much the series deals with Danny's mental health and long-held traumas, it makes sense that his relationship with Candy would be a vital part of the narrative, and it's pretty incredible that Rossum could bring such a personal connection to her performance.

So what about the criticism that Rossum is too young to play Holland's mother? Age gaps in Hollywood are, certainly, nothing new, but it's typically criticized when it comes to romantic couplings on-screen. Younger women are invariably paired with much-older men, and nobody is supposed to clock that; think Scarlett Johansson, who was 18-year-old when she filmed "Lost in Translation" against 52-year-old Bill Murray. In this instance, it feels like, despite Rossum's obvious talent, the production could have chosen an actress appropriately older than Holland, but Rossum, who is 36, pushed back against that while speaking to ET.

"It makes sense when I read the script," she revealed. "Candy's a super young mom, she's almost a child in her own right when she becomes pregnant at age 16. You watch as I age from 25 to 35, which is actually younger than I am now."

Beyond that, Rossum also performed scenes as Candy with Zachary Golinger, who plays Danny at a younger age... and she said those scenes really helped her round out her interactions with Holland. "I was so taken with the series and really just loved all my scenes, especially with young Danny [played by Zachary Golinger]. 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."

With Rossum along for the ride in a supporting role, "The Crowded Room" really focuses on Holland's Danny, who becomes a suspect regarding a string of sexual assault happening on an Ohio college campus, and Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried), the detective tasked with investigating him. Though it's based on Daniel Keyes' book "The Minds of Billy Milligan," which features the name of the real-life man behind the assaults, the name has been slightly tweaked for Holland's character — and as the actor previously revealed to Entertainment Weekly, it was a challenging yet rewarding experience playing such a dark role.

"It's a show that will take you on twists and turns — you'll never know where you are or what's going on — and then it will all come to a miraculous conclusion toward the end," Holland said in May. "It's a story about heartbreak. It's a story about love. It's a story about betrayal. And, most of all, it's a story about a young kid's determination to survive."

"The Crowded Room" premieres on Apple TV+ on June 9, 2023.