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Biography #2 (for Poseidon)

Emmy Rossum began her theatrical career at the age of seven when she was chosen to join the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center as a member of the Children's Chorus. She studied classical vocal technique and stagecraft there while performing in over twenty different operas in five languages.

Rossum made her television debut in 1999 as a recurring character in the long-running daytime drama As the World Turns. Her other television credits include guest starring appearances on Law and Order and The Practice, and in the telefilms Genius, Grace and Glorie, and The Audrey Hepburn Story, for which she received considerable critical acclaim.

Rossum made her first feature film when she was 13, playing an Appalachian orphan in Songcatcher. The movie won the Special Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Performance at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000 and her performance earned Rossum an Independent Spirit Award nomination in the category of Best Debut Performance.

Director Clint Eastwood cast her as Sean Penn's daughter in the 2003 film Mystic River. The following year, Rossum starred opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Roland Emmerich's box office hit The Day After Tomorrow.

She is perhaps best known for her performance as Christine in director Joel Schumacher's feature film adaptation of the stage phenomenon The Phantom of the Opera. The musical's creator, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, personally selected Rossum, who was only 16 at the time, to star as the opera singer who becomes the object of the Phantom's obsession. Her performance earned Rossum a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 2004, the National Board of Review's award for Best Female Breakthrough Performance of 2004 and the Broadcast Film Critics' Association Award for Best Young Actress of 2004.

She is currently recording an album for Geffen Records.

Bio courtesy Warner Bros. for "Poseidon" (14-Jul-2006)


Biography #3 (for The Day After Tomorrow)

Emmy Rossum began her theatrical career at age seven, when she was chosen to join the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center as a member of the Children's Chorus. She was trained there in stagecraft and classical vocal technique in order to sing the children's parts in the company's regular performances. During the next five years, Rossum appeared in 20 different operas, singing in five languages. She has worked alongside the world's greatest opera singers, including Placido Domingo, Denyce Graves, Angela Gheorghui and Dimitri Hvorostovsky.

In 1995, Rossum sang in the first Metropolitan Opera production of Tschaikovsky's Queen of Spades, directed by Elijah Moshinsky. In 1996, she sang in Franco Zeffirelli's new production of Carmen and in Tim Albery's production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

During these years at the Met, Rossum often sang in several operas each week including La Boheme, Turandot, Pagliacci, Hansel and Gretel and Die Meistersinger von Nuremburg. In 1997 at Carnegie Hall, she joined the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra in a presentation of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, directed by James Levine.

Rossum made her television debut at the age of eleven as a recurring character on the long running American daytime program As the World Turns. She then guest-starred on the award-winning series Law and Order and The Practice.

Her ear for language and dialect, which she had developed at the Met, was reflected in her portrayal of the teenage Audrey Hepburn in the television movie Audrey, a performance for which she won critical acclaim.

In January 2000, at age 13, Rossum made her big-screen debut as the Appalachian orphan Deladis Slocum in Songcatcher. The film screened in dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. Rossum's voice, singing in a Scotch-Irish ballad style, was featured in the film. Her acting performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award in the category of Best Debut Performance. After seeing an early cut of the film, Dolly Parton was inspired to write a mother-daughter duet which she recorded with Rossum. That duet, When Love is New, was released on the Songcatcher soundtrack CD.

Variety named Rossum One of the Ten to Watch in the year 2000. She has a supporting role opposite Sean Penn, Lawrence Fishburne, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins in the Clint Eastwood-directed drama Mystic River, which received several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. The New York Times called her performance transfixing and cited it as one of the Breakout Performances of 2003. The Times named Rossum as one of the "Six Actors to Watch this Fall (and Long Thereafter)."

In September 2003, Rossum began production on the Joel Schumacher-directed film of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. She acts and sings the role of Christine Daae, the young opera singer who becomes the object of the Phantom's obsession.

Rossum was born in New York City in 1986 and attended the Spence School until 1996, when she began to homeschool through private tuition and by enrolling in programs offered by Stanford University's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) and Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development (CTD). Currently, she takes college courses at Columbia University.

Bio courtesy Fox for "The Day After Tomorrow" (17-Jun-2004)


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