The first thing you notice about Emma Roberts is her chic designer clothes -- today she has on a suit and five-inch black patent-leather stilettos. You were expecting maybe the demure early '60s outfits -- complete with knee socks and penny loafers -- that she sports as the star of the new movie "Nancy Drew"?
The film, which opens Friday, has a contemporary setting. In writer/director Andrew Fleming's fondly satiric vision, it's just Nancy who's amusingly out of sync. When a promising business deal lures her widowed lawyer dad, Carson Drew (Tate Donovan, late of "The O.C."), away from staid River Heights to the fleshpots of Los Angeles, Nancy tags along -- providently renting a mansion with a built-in mystery.
Just as mysterious, to her, are the mores of her trendy new schoolmates. "OMG IM SITING NEXT TO MARTHA STWART!" an appalled peer (Daniella Monet) instant-messages after observing the transplanted teen's retro manners.
Another thing you might notice about Roberts is that she seems to share the tissue-thin reactivity -- a useful trait for a film actor -- of her very famous aunt Julia. The suggestion that her depiction of Drew is "wonkier" than the all-too-perfect (pretty and popular!) heroine of the 1930s book series that inspired the film elicits, for just a microsecond, a cool, mildly affronted look.
Yet there's a definite disjunction. It's difficult to reconcile this poised, polished 16-year-old sylph -- who's midway along a 10-city tour that includes reading initiatives at local libraries -- with the rambunctious character you see on screen. Nancy is whip-smart (not to mention well-prepared), but also somewhat socially awkward, with a headlong way of speaking that gives her a slight, frothy lisp and a geeky air of excessive enthusiasm.
That must be why they call it acting.
Roberts caught the acting bug as a 5-year-old tagging along on her aunt's many shoots (one of her earliest memories of hanging out on set was the thrill of running wild in a Vegas hotel that hadn't yet opened). Her mother, Kelly Cunningham -- former girlfriend of the actor Eric Roberts, Emma's father -- initially kept her out of the business to shield her childhood, but let her start auditioning at age 9. Roberts snagged the very first part she tried out for, playing Johnny Depp's daughter in the 2001 Ted Demme film "Blow." Next came principal roles in "Grand Champion" and "Spymate," and a long run -- three seasons to date -- as star of the Nickelodeon series "Unfabulous," which has won her a slew of awards. By the time Roberts hit her teens, she was a certified star.
Which might explain her subdued, businesslike manner. She's unfailingly polite but tame and self-contained: hated the guitar lessons her mother urged on her (though ultimately they proved helpful for "Unfabulous," in which her character, Addie Singer, uses music to pour out her soul). Reading-wise, loves Jodi Picoult and "The Gossip Girls" series. Part of her mission in touring the country is to promote two favorite causes: Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.) and Get Caught Reading.
"I noticed that my little sister Grace" -- the 6-year-old daughter of Cunningham and ex-L.A. Guns bassist Kelly Nickels -- "and her friends don't enjoy reading. I like reading a lot. "
Did she find filming "Nancy Drew" to be an enjoyable experience? Everyone and everything was "really great." Any concerns about the fallen idols who've trod a similar path before her? (Lindsay Lohan is once again dominating the headlines.) "It's sad," she says, "but I'm really not worried."
There's no apparent reason she should be (stilettos notwithstanding). Roberts has her future mapped out. She plans to reenter high school back home in Los Angeles in time for her senior year -- tutors have seen to the past three, while she was busy shooting -- and apply to college, with some preference given to Boston-area schools ("I love the East Coast").
Her manager, David Sweeney, notes that Roberts -- whom he first encountered when she was a n 8-year-old singing karaoke at an LA farmer's market -- is "a good girl who makes it OK to be a good girl." And the film, with its tongue-in-cheek take on teenage derring-do, even makes it look like fun.
Roberts seems considerably more at ease later that afternoon in the Boston Public Library's Abbey Room, where, amid grand fresco e s drawn from Arthurian legend, her interlocutors consist of several score of squirmy Girl Scouts -- most half her size and age -- who have gotten out of school early to get a real-live glimpse of someone they've already seen so much of.
Fielding questions from the audience (some of them statements like "I think you're pretty"), Roberts proves herself quick on her feet. "You in the green -- " she starts, catching herself in time to laugh, "Oh, you're all in green." When asked if she has "a type" (an allusion to a scene in the trailer just screened), she bounces back with "He has to be nice and cute and funny," and she admits to having a boyfriend herself ("He's not an actor"). When, for the third time, she's asked at what age she filmed "Aquamarine" -- in which she co starred with pop star JoJo -- she says, "Thirteen turning fourteen" with a mock-impatient arch of the eyebrows. She has a cat named Pirate, and the driving scenes of "Nancy Drew" were simulated: "I have my permit, but I failed my license test."
Has she read the Nancy Drew books? Definitely. "A lot of people give them to me as presents," she says. "Every time I get a little square package, I know it's a book."
The chance to play the junior sleuth who has inspired decades of engrossing stories and enchanted several generations -- the series ran to 175 titles, and more than 80 million copies have sold worldwide -- has been "an honor," Roberts says. Will there be a sequel? "Hopefully, yeah!"
The little girls lap it up, hands shooting in the air as they do their best to stay anchored in their seats. There's every indication that, once they pile back into their buses and head home, they'll follow up on her advice and take out some Nancy Drew books. Some might even tackle her latest fave, "To Kill a Mockingbird."
It's a given that they'll all want to see "Nancy Drew" the movie -- as well as any sequel(s) to come. For the moment, Roberts is gearing up for "Wild Child," a : comedy -- from the team that created "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Bridget Jones," and "Billy Elliot" -- about an "out-of-control Malibu princess" dispatched to a draconian English boarding school. It's scheduled to shoot overseas this summer.
Her eyes light up at the very sound of it. Even good girls sometimes like to act out -- safely -- and you can bet that this one is going to have a blast being bad.
source:/www.boston.com
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