Emmy Rossum on Playing Tom Holland’s Mom and Being Only 10 Years Older (Exclusive)

Emmy Rossum is opening up about playing Tom Holland’s mom. ET’s Rachel Smith spoke to the 36-year-old actress at the premiere of The Crowded Room in New York City on Thursday, and she revealed what it felt like to play mom to an actor that’s approximately 10 years her junior.

“It makes sense when I read the script,” Rossum reasoned. “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.”

While the age gap between Rossum and Holland may be small, the actress said she “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 said of actor Zachary Golinger, who plays a younger version of Holland’s character. “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.”

As a mom herself — Rossum shares a 2-month old son and a 2-year-old daughter with her husband, Sam Esmail — the actress said the role “brings 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 said. “I think the show has a lot to say about love and empathy and understanding of those who are different than we are.”

As for the show itself, a psychological thriller that tells the ’70s-set story of a young man who’s arrested for a shocking crime and an unlikely investigator that must solve the mystery behind it before the true criminal strikes again, Rossum promised “lots of twists and turns.”

Rossum adds, “It’s really shocking and thought provoking and it really has a lot of pieces of the puzzle to put together.”

Watch the video below for more on The Crowded Room, which will premiere Friday, June 9 on Apple TV+. 

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