Emmy Rossum, 36, defends playing Tom Holland’s mum in series

Emmy Rossum has defended playing Tom Holland’s mum, despite being less than a decade older than him.

The 36-year-old actor played the Spider-Man actor’s mum in the Apple TV+ series, The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller created by Akiva Goldsman and inspired by the 1981 novel The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes.

Holland, 27, portrays the lead character, a man named Danny Sullivan who is arrested for his involvement in a shooting that took place back in 1979. Danny unveils the mystery surrounding his life through a series of interviews with his interrogator.

Although the series was panned by critics, and since its debut as mostly flown under the radar - except for Holland’s viral x-rated club scene, of course. One thing that did catch the internet’s attention was the teeny tiny age gap between the on-screen mother and son, which is only nine years.

Despite the backlash regarding the casting decisions, Rossum said it ‘makes sense’ for the show.

Apple TV+

“Candy’s a super young mom, she’s almost a child in her own right when she becomes pregnant at age 16,” Rossum told Entertainment Tonight.

“You watch as I age from 25 to 35, which is actually younger than I am now.”

The Shameless star said she ‘fell in love with the relationship between mother and son and the closeness and everything that they’re grieving in later episodes’.

There are flashback scenes in the show which feature a younger version of Danny Sullivan, played by Zachary Golinger, and Rossum said she ‘especially’ loved her scenes with him.

“Our relationship was so beautiful and so I knew everything that we had that I had lost in the scenes with Tom,” she said.

Back in June following the debut of the show, Holland said he’s taking a break from acting because filming The Crowded Room took a toll on him.

AppleTV+

In an interview with ExtraTV, he said: “It was a tough time for sure. You know, we were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before, and then on top of that, being a producer, dealing with the day to day problems that come with any film set, just added that extra level of pressure.

“But I really enjoyed it, I loved the learning curve of becoming a producer. I’m no stranger to hard work, I’ve always lived by this idea that hard work is good work. And I really enjoyed it.

“But then again, the show did break me. There did come a time where I was sort of like, ‘I need to have a break’.”