Not many people know what they really want to do in their lifetime, but since the age of seven (7) Emmy Rossum knew what she wanted and would stop at nothing to reach her goal of being an accomplished actress/singer. Born Emmanuelle Grey Rossum on September 12, 1986, Emmy has always been into entertaining people saying "I think my parents noticed that I was into music when I was two (2) and wouldn't stop kicking a beat at the table". When Emmy reached her early school years, her kindergarten music teacher (giving that her teacher said she could hold a pitch) suggested that she go try out for The Metropolitian Opera in New York City. So at the age of six (6) Emmy parents took her to the opera house, where she prepared numerous songs she had learned in school, but all they wanted to hear her sing was "Happy Birthday". Emmy says about her audition at the Metropolitian Opera "You know, a lot of people don't know this, but Happy Birthday is actually a kind of difficult song to sing. It has an octive leap, so they played it in twelve (12) different keys, and then they said 'Welcome to the Operah'" After her audition, Emmy found out then and there that they accepted her, and soon enough was working alongside figures such as Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. During her years with the Metropolitian Opera, Emmy performed in over twenty (20) operas in six (6) different languages at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. She made five ($5) dollars per night she did, and saying in a interview in 2004 "I made five dollars ($5) a night, and there were horses onstage, with me, that were getting one-hundred and fifty ($150). So it's the moment, I think, when you're valued less then livestock, that you really know you're there because you love it."

At the age of twelve (12), Emmy had to leave the Metropolitian Opera because she was getting too tall to fit into the children's clothing. It was no surprise then, that Emmy would try her luck in Hollywood. Her first television appearence was on the show Law & Order, where she played a girl who's uncle was murdered. Emmy also created the role of Abigail Williams in the daytime soap opera As the World Turns in 1999, and branched out to perform in four (4) made-for-television movies including Genius, The Audrey Hepburn Story, Only Love, and Grace & Glorie. She also did various other television appearences such as The Pratice and Snoops.

In 2000, Emmy made her theatrical debut in Songcatcher, which won the Special Jury Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance at the Sundance Film Festival held on January 22, 2000. Emmy received an Independent Spirit Award nomination, in the category of Best Debut Performance, for her performance as an Appalachian orphan in the movie. She also showed everyone she had some serious musical chops in her when she sang four (4) songs (one in which she got to sing a duet with none other then Dolly Pardon!) songs for the movie. After the sucess of Songcatcher, Emmy went onto play a few co-starring roles in It had to Be You, An American Rhapsody, Happy Now, and Passionada. She then went on to play a aspiring songwriter, looking for her biological father in Nola.

Emmy's first major studio film would be in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (also starring Sean Penn and Tim Robbins), where she portrayed Sean Penn's ill-fated daughter, in which she projected an aura of innocence that made her tragic death both memorable and heartbreaking. Emmy then flew to Montreal, Canada to film her next movie. In The Day After Tomorrow, Emmy portrayed a fresh-faced but highly intelligent heroine (in which she got to make-out with Jake Gyllenhaal). Filming for the movie lasted six (6) months. Once Emmy returned to her home in New York City, the then sixteen (16) year old went to audition and screen-test for the role of Christine Daaé in Andrew Llyod Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, in which she was put into full costume and make-up. She says "I went in and started vocalising with the accompanist and Andrew walked in as we were preparing. He didn't say hello, didn't introduce himself; he just sat down in front of me and said, 'Shall we?' I thought to myself, it was my one shot so I had better just stand up and do it, so I didn't introduce myself, I nodded to the accompanist, and I did the two biggest numbers in the show. Then he stood up and said: 'That was great. I'm Andrew." Although surprised to be chosen ahead of many better-known and older actresses considered for the part, the combination of her vulnerable, fragile beauty and fine, classically-trained singing voice ultimately proved that she was perfectly cast. She'd then fly to Lond, England to film the movie for eight (8) months.

In preparation for the role, she took ballet classes for two months and started polishing her singing (take note that she hadn't sung opera-like music in four or five (4/5) years). Emmy, in her approach to acting, likes to draw heavily upon her own experiences, so she visited locations in Paris for making her performance emotionally realistic for this particular role. She stood on the roof of the Opera Garnier (in London) where Christine and Raoul sing "All I Ask of You" and went underneath the opera house where there is actually a gloomy, dark lake. She studied Degas' paintings of ballerinas in the Musee d'Orsay to learn how to stand like one, and attended a seance at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britian where a medium talked to her about her late grandmother. Emmy also took cooking classes at La Cordon Bleu in London. She later said in a interview that in order to make the Phantom (played by Scottish actor Gerald Butler) and Christine's bond even stronger, she would cook for Gerald. (and in return, he would buy and take her to concerts) This would prove to be the movie everyone reconizes her from. Emmy was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Phantom.

Emmy then went on the film the 2006 blockbuster film Poseidon. Emmy plays a young woman who wants to break away from her father's side, but still wants to keep her bond with him.

Emmy attended the private Spence School in Manhattan through the 7th grade, and then finished high school using tutors and the Internet (through Stanford University). She was enrolled at Columbia University and had already completed a course in art history, being inspired by her study of Degas in Paris.

Emmy's debut CD Inside Out (Geffen Records) came out on October 23, 2007 and would prove to be a musically well-written, soothing ambient pop album. It hit number three (#3) on the Itunes Pop Charts, and would allow her to win a performance on Yahoo's Who's Next? contest. On December 4, 2007, Emmy released another EP, Carol of the Bells, exclusively on Itunes.

Emmy just wrapped up filming Dragonball, a live action movie based on the popular Japenese comic book series. She plays Bulma, an inventor/scientist whose father’s Dragon Ball is stolen by Piccolo. The movie also stars Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Jaimie Chungand Joon Park, and Chow Yun-Fat. Dragonball will hit theaters on April 3, 2009.

Anyway you put it, Emmy Rossum has proved to be a multi-talented artist and performer, and we can't wait to see what the future holds for her!