Amid a pack of Britneys, ‘Nancy Drew’ star stands out
Sometimes it takes a mom to put things into perspective. Emma Roberts, the young star of the new Nancy Drew film that opens today, is apparently so likable, so professional, so wholesome that even a makeup artist she works with throughout an entire day can’t help raving about her.
Her directors use terms like “one of a kind” and talk about how she knows the names of all the crew members – and their kids.
By the time the creator of the Nickelodeon tween series “Unfabulous” – Roberts’ breakout vehicle – mentions that she sang the goody-good “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from “Grease” at her audition, a reporter’s sweet-o-meter is headed off the charts.
“She just twinkled,” says Nickelodeon’s Sue Rose.
Sure enough, when the 16-year-old Roberts rolls into town to promote her turn in “Nancy Drew” – in which she’s all Peter Pan collars and penny loafers and healthy lunches packed in a metal lunch pail, even though the film is set in modern-day Los Angeles – it’s hard not to fall for her.
She settles in for an interview in worn ballet flats, black jeans, a T-shirt and a tiny cardigan sweater. Her eyes are huge, her smile natural, her demeanor unfailingly polite.
All anyone seems to hear about these days are the bad girls of Hollywood: Lohan and Spears and Hilton, rehab and jail, DUIs and drugs and unfortunately revealing wardrobe choices.
The age-old image of the Hollywood princess – think Emma’s aunt, Julia Roberts – has been dwarfed by the drumbeat of girls gone wild.
Heck, even Roberts’ next project is tentatively titled “Wild Child,” which she describes: Spoiled Malibu teenager is so out of control that she gets packed off to boarding school in England.
Any vestiges of yourself in that character?
She giggles.
“There are certain aspects I can relate myself to in that character,” she says.
Really? Like what?
“She’s really sassy and has an attitude and stuff.”
Which brings us back to Mom.
Kelly Cunningham certainly has a healthy dose of pride in her daughter’s accomplishments, but she’s not one to sugarcoat.
Sassy? Try “mouthy,” to quote Mom.
“Come on,” Cunningham says, “no one’s perfect. By the time she’s 18 years old, she’ll probably have been grounded 100,000 times.”
Roberts, it appears, is just a teenager – but not your typical teenager, of course.
There’s nothing run-of-the-mill about taking a trip to Las Vegas to visit Aunt Julia at work and hanging out with George Clooney during the filming of “Ocean’s Eleven.” Or giving a joint reading with Laura Bush at a private girls’ school, as Roberts did during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.
This girl is not only the niece of an actor, she’s the daughter of one; her father is Eric Roberts.
But she also has a mom (her parents split when she was a baby, and her mother has primary custody) who wouldn’t buy her a car for her 16th birthday, insists on handwritten thank-you notes and grounds her regularly. In fact, Roberts got grounded – for talking back, as usual – just the week before the publicity tour.
As a little girl, Roberts loved to perform in shows and dances and be the center of attention. At 9, she started begging her mother to go on auditions. Cunningham eventually caved – thinking, she says, that her daughter wouldn’t get the part anyway – and Roberts was cast the very first time out, in a small role in the Johnny Depp film “Blow.”
By 12, she was meeting with executives at Nickelodeon, who cast her in “Unfabulous” as Addie Singer, an awkward seventh-grader who writes songs about the trials of junior high. (Roberts just wrapped her third and final season, which will air in the fall.)
“Nancy Drew” is the first film Roberts has to carry – she was in every scene – and it was a challenge for her to play a character so temperamentally different from herself.
While she shares Nancy’s natural curiosity and personal drive, Nancy is a very serious young woman. She is always focused, always thinking, always determinedly trying to help the next person by solving the next mystery. She would never talk back to an adult. (Unless, that is, he was one of the “shady characters” she was trying to catch.)
Roberts is “freewheeling, she likes to laugh, and she’s disarming,” says Andrew Fleming, the “Nancy Drew” director.
Nancy, he adds, “is not like anybody you or I know. So (Emma) had to go up in that space and inhabit it, and she did it. … She’s using her own self to be something very unlike herself, which is really the hard part.”
The girl in her still lights up at the mention of American Girl dolls and willingly watches endless replays of “High School Musical” to appease her 6-year-old sister, Grace. She has the same friends she made in middle school, and though she has been home-schooled the past few years to accommodate her work schedule, she attends their football games and formals.
“She’s a good egg, especially when you compare her to other girls,” says Elizabeth Allen, who directed “Aquamarine,” a 2006 fantasy that provided Roberts’ biggest prior film role.
“We’re lacking role models for young girls, for audience members, and that’s why I’m happy Emma is so successful. … She’s not a goody-goody, but, because of Kelly, she’s not going to be raging out of control.”
“She’s always supervised,” Cunningham says of her daughter. “She never goes to the set by herself. She’s not at home by herself.
“What’s going on with these other girls, I feel very sad about it. … There are consequences for your behavior and that’s what I try to tell Emma. She has this career now, and she has a lot to lose. Hopefully, she’ll make the right choices.”
As a reward for all her work on “Nancy Drew,” Roberts asked her mom for a $2,500 Chanel purse.
Mom, not surprisingly, said no.