Exclusive Interview: Emmy Rossum (Dare)

Three typical high school students come together in a timeless story about overcoming stereotypes, self exploration and sexual boundaries in the new film Dare (2009). The funny new film, stars, The amazingly talented The Phantom of the Opera (2004) songstress Emmy Rossum, Friday Night Lights (TV) stud Zach Gilford and newcomer Ashley Springer. The tag line for this Dare is "Do Something You're Afraid Of."

Together the bookish Alexa (Rossum), loner Ben (Springer) and handsome Johnny (Gilford) embark on a journey through the darkest, the funniest and the most awkward parts of adolescence. Opening November 13th, Dare (2009) pushes viewers to open their minds in a remarkable tale of self-examination. PopStar spoke with leading lady Emmy Rossum who educated us on the back story of this film, spilled the beans when it came to her love scenes, and of course talks Twitter.

Your new film Dare is more than just a film; it brings to life the issues, situations, and stereotypes that occur in every high school around the world. Can you give us some back story on this film?

We made the movie in Philly. I got involved with the movie; I actually saw the short film on which our film was based that was made by the same writer/director team. They were at Columbia Film School together and it was a school project they had to work on. Every director was assigned to direct a script that they had not written, so they were paired up with a writer. When they graduated from Columbia Film School, they intended to make this into a feature.

I got sent this package and I popped in the DVD before I even looked at the script and it was essentially just the pool scene between the two boys and that encounter and the Alexa character was very peripheral. I immediately saw that the director had approached it with such sensitivity and honesty and it was a very fresh take on how people feel when they are growing up. It was sexy and awkwardly funny and I really wanted to be part of it.

Dare picked up rave reviews at Sundance Film Festival last winter but we are also hearing lots of buzz regarding Dafrom high school student. They feel that this film is truly one of the only films that captured the essence of adolescence.

We definitely felt really connected to the project. We were shooting on a shoe-string budget and everyone there wanted to make this film and tell this story. It was really fun and we all got really close making it as you can imagine with all of our intimate scenes. It really felt that we were telling a story about three people who were trying to figure out who they were, who they were not, and define their sexuality. I really like how each character has separate stories where you get to see the world through their eyes. In everyone's story they are always the hero, they are always the sensitive one but sometimes through other people's eyes they are not. So I thought it was really interesting to show characters fully fleshed and more than just your typical high school student. This film is very real.

In this film there are many scenes that some might view as racy. Can you talk to us about some of the racy scenes and your comfort level throughout the process?

Inherently built into the scenes is an awkward quality, these kids have never had sex before so there is definitely an awkwardness which they approach. We got to shoot all of our intimate scenes towards the end of the shoot, so we already knew each other really well. We were all best friends; we were shooting in a city where we didn't know anyone so we just hung out all the time and got really close. It made it easier for us to shoot those kinds of scenes and we knew our director was going to handle it in a way in a non exploitative or excessive way. We had seen the short film and the director handled the sexual scenes with such honestly and sensitivity. The sex is not used to show kids having sex but to show what they are emotionally dealing with. To me that was a really intimate and lovely thing.

The tag line for this film is "Do Something You're Afraid Of." In the past year have you done something you've been afraid of?

On a dare I sang karaoke on Jay Leno. I did Christina Aguilera's "Dirty" which was completely humiliating. My costars who saw me do karaoke in Japan dared me to go on Jay Leno and do it for Jay. I was like, 'hell yeah." I am not one to turn down a dare unless it is something insane like jumping out of a plane which just seems very counterintuitive to me.

Message to Fans.

I think the movie is so indicative of where I am in my life right now and it's easy to take people at face value and I would really like everyone to get to know me as a person. I am on Twitter so if anyone wants to follow me they can talk to me or ask me questions. I am very easily accessible if people want to get to know me.