Emmy Rossum Talks About Her Work with Terry Knickerbocker Over 13 Years, Her Upcoming Opening in “Walden” at New York City’s Renowned Second Stage Theater, and How Terry’s Insights Have Helped Her Find the “Tethers” Between Herself and the Roles She Plays.

Emmy: The preparation isn’t different, but my experience of the preparation is, because the format is so different. In television and film, you have to show up at the set ready to deliver your performance, not to find it. I, therefore, conduct mini-workshops with Terry before I arrive at the set, because the work with my collaborators on set will be so fast and furious.

In theater, rehearsals provide time with the director, the playwright, and fellow cast members who are all adding to the experience leading up to opening night. With “Walden,” I began working with Terry even before I decided to do the play. I had first read it a couple of years ago and was immediately drawn to it, but I needed to be sure that the role was right for me. Reading the play with Terry and exploring the part – speaking the lines and hearing them out loud – convinced me that it was right. Terry and I worked together further on the part, as I prepared for rehearsals. I wanted to try some things out before I got to the rehearsal room.

Emmy: No, I worked with Terry before I auditioned for “Shameless.” I told my agent at the time that I thought there were parts of myself that I was not mining well enough; I wanted to stretch in ways that I didn’t know. She recommended Terry, and we’ve worked together ever since.

Terry cares deeply about the profession, the character being portrayed, and the craft, but he also cares about the actor. When mining parts of yourself, you’re playing a bit with fire, because your body is your instrument. There’s a part of the performance that is intellectual, but there’s also a part that is emotional. When you’re working through scenes to portray another person, your body doesn’t know that you’re becoming someone else. If the resulting fire is not cooled down afterwards, you can get burned. Terry has taught me coping mechanisms to deal
with that.

Throughout that process, I’ve gotten to know Terry quite well. He was at my wedding. I’ve been to his birthday parties. I’ve spoken to his students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio, as has my husband, Sam Esmail. In fact, I spoke at the first graduation ceremony of the Studio. Terry also coached me on the show where I met Sam. Knowing Terry that well has helped me find the tethers between me and the roles I play as well as the roles of my fellow actors.

Emmy: The tethers are the connections, the ties, that enable you as an actor to relate both to the person you’re portraying and to other characters to whom you’re relating. In “Walden,” I portray Stella who, along with her now-estranged twin sister Cassie – played by Zoë Winters – was raised by their astronaut father to be NASA scientists. The twins subsequently took different paths: Cassie has just returned from a successful moon mission, while Stella left NASA behind and moved to the wilderness to start a family. When they reunite, old conflicts reignite, but for this part I needed to understand how I could relate to my character’s scientist brain, because her scientific orientation is key to her personality. Terry helped unlock for me what the experience of living this woman’s story would be. I found it endlessly fascinating. I was moved by the journey, and it became clear that it would be a captivating dynamic to explore.

Similarly, in “Shameless,” Terry helped me keep exploring my understanding of and relationship to Fiona Gallagher, the character I portrayed for nine seasons. In a long-running series, the colors in the actor’s paintbox are easier and easier to understand, but they can also become too familiar. For the character to grow, you as an actor have to grow. Terry helped me make that happen.

In another production altogether, I played a character who was in a romantic relationship with a character whom I did not like. I experienced resistance to the relationship within myself, but I still had to portray the romantic relationship. Terry helped me identify the one single thing that I found charming in that other character. I was then able to enlarge that one attribute and find joy and energy in their relationship. That’s all I focused on, and the scene worked.

I value enormously the role of the teacher, and I look to Terry for that guidance – with respect to both the craft of acting and how the craft relates to my own life. It’s the combination of the two that allows me as an actor to take on new roles and keep mining and stretching myself.