-Our next guest is a talented actress
you know from her work in the TV series "Shameless,"
as well as films such as "The Phantom of the Opera"
and "Mystic River." She both executive produced
and stars in "Angelyne," which is available now on Peacock.
Let's take a look. -So, boys, what's this about?
Harold tells me you're a fan of Angelyne.
Me too.
-Well, as I was just telling Harold,
your billboard at Sunset and Vine
is in a prime location for one of our clients.
-Hmm. Who's the client?
-We'd like to take over the lease contract.
And we're willing to throw in
a couple thousand extra to sweeten the deal.
It's a very generous offer.
-Well, gentlemen, this is not my decision to make.
Please talk to my partner.
-[ Chuckles ] -[ Chuckles ]
-Uh, no offense, but this might be above your head.
-Hmm, I -- I just -- I don't see anything up there.
-Please welcome back to the show, Emmy Rossum, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Up-tempo music plays ]
♪♪
-Hi, Emmy, welcome back. -Hi. Thanks for having me.
-This is very exciting. Since the last time I saw you,
you are a mother for the first time.
You celebrated your first Mother's Day.
-I know. Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Baby turning one next week? -Yeah, on Tuesday.
That was quick. -Do you have big plans?
Big birthday plans? -Well, you know,
she made all these friends. -I'm so sorry.
-In Central Park, at the playground.
Yeah, she has a busier social calendar than I do.
-That's fantastic. -So she's having a party
with her friends -- like, a little music party.
-That's excellent. I'm very, very happy for you.
Congratulations. -Thanks.
-So, this show -- so, this is a real person.
This is a story about a real person
that basically was famous from a billboard first.
Can you tell us a little bit about her?
-Yeah, she's kind of a little bit of a --
she's, like, a unicorn in Los Angeles.
She rose to power in the '80s
through a series of mysterious billboards
that popped up, featuring this incredibly provocative woman,
kind of laying in this provocative pose,
just her name and a phone number for management.
And suddenly, overnight, they started to multiply,
until there were 200 billboards and a 10-story wall.
And she would drive around L.A., and still does,
in this pink Corvette, with the hair and the body
and the really incredibly honed style.
And she was the first person to kind of raise her hand
and say, "I am famous. And I am an enigma.
I am a mystery." And to be celebrated
for who she is and not something that she does.
-And how old were you when you were first hip to her,
as a thing? -I discovered her
through her billboards when I was 12 or 13.
I was in L.A., auditioning for the first time,
and I saw a billboard. And the funniest thing about it
was I -- it's almost like, once you see it,
you just start to see it everywhere.
And so I would ask people, "Who is this woman, Angelyne?"
And they would all be like, "Oh, my God, Angelyne, I love her."
And I would say, "What does she do?
Like, what's her story?" And everyone would say
a completely different story. She was from space.
She was from Ohio. There were 12 of her.
There was some rich guy who paid for the billboards.
She was a man. There is 12 of her.
You can rent them out for a party.
They switch them out every year. Just wild stories.
And throughout, like, she was so hip and smart,
'cause she knew that she never contradicted any of the stories.
They only fueled her fame.
And really that was her pursuit, the love of the world.
-And so you embark on this project to tell her story.
You got to meet the real Angelyne.
What was that like?
-Yeah, I was so far down the rabbit hole by that point.
I was so kind of deeply enamored of her
and kind of her feminine power
and her kind of protesting the patriarchy in her way.
I got this meeting with her
to talk about potentially doing this show,
and I showed up an hour early, and she was on time.
But then, she sells merch out of her car --
T-shirts and skateboards and stuff
with her face on them, and people buy them.
They pay -- She doesn't give selfies for free, guys.
-Wow. -She charges $50 for a selfie.
And if you want the fan, she covers her face with a fan.
But if you want the fan down, it's more.
-Really? -Uh-huh.
So she ended up an hour late to the meeting,
because I could see she was, like, swarmed with fans,
selling merch, which I loved. -Yeah.
-And then, when she finally sat down,
she laid a napkin on the chair
and she kind of delicately sat down
and kind of posed in her way. And then she said, "So,
why do you have such a hard-on to play me?"
[ Laughter ]
And I was like, "That's why."
'Cause she's a real badass. -Yeah.
-She is a feminist in the most unexpected way,
and she's totally unapologetic.
-You do not look like her. -No.
-So, to play her, obviously,
you had to go through a transformation.
I would assume it took a great amount of time
to get into this character. -Yes. Yes.
It was a very long process
with prosthetics and a hair-and-makeup team.
And you know, there's kind of latex
and various stages of things. -How long?
-Well, some hours in the contemporary-day makeup
was like seven hours, some days. -Wow!
-Yeah. So, a long time.
But really, they're painting you and sculpting you
like you're the Sistine Chapel. -Yeah.
-Really, I mean, there was PVC piping in my nose.
There's stuff in my mouth. My ear lobes aren't my ears.
There's two contact lenses in each eye.
But it's so fun. -When you look in the mirror
afterwards, is it jarring?
-Well, at first it's -- You know, when they
spun me around, it's almost like dissociative.
Like you don't see yourself,
and you're speaking in a voice that doesn't sound like yours
and saying dialogue that isn't yours.
And it's -- At first, it's, like, unsettling.
It's terrifying. And then it's, like,
this freedom that comes
with, like, "Oh, I can go far with this.
I can stretch and I can play here.
And this is fun." -Really, you must feel safer
to take giant swings, because it's almost feels
like you're doing it on behalf of somebody else.
-Yeah, and I think what was so fun about this
is the story of, like, talking about her,
playing her as an icon, not a person,
and all throughout history, all the people
that tried to tell her story and co-opt her narrative,
and so the show is kind of
this very unconventional storytelling,
'cause she is unconventional.
And we see different versions of her,
depending on who is telling the story.
So it was fun to play all the different versions
of what she might have been.
-Not just from other people's perspective,
but over the course of 50 years. So I would assume
you've never played a character that has this --
-No. -As far as the amount of years
the scope was. -No, aging in both directions.
-Right. -Tape and string.
[ Laughter ] Yep.
-Your husband, Sam, who's a very talented
television producer and writer, he was a producer
on this, as well. -He was.
-Have you guys -- What was it like,
collaborating with him on this? -It was so fun.
Although, he did come to set and did not know what to make of it,
'cause it was just not me anymore.
-Yeah. -But, you know,
you rehearse something for so long,
you do it more hours of the day than you're not doing it.
So, you come home and you're making eggs
at the end of the day for, like, a quick dinner,
and you find yourself kind of doing
all this stuff that's so foreign to you.
But you're not in it anymore, but you're still in it.
-Yeah. -So, it's just this --
Yeah, it kind of permeates your home life a bit.
-You worked with a parakeet, correct?
-Yes. -How was that?
-You know, I like making it hard.
-Yeah. -I really do.
It's always fun. -Was the parakeet hard?
-Most professional actor I've ever worked with.
-Really? -Yeah.
Hit their mark every single time.
Had been in movies, well-trained, yeah.
-Did you retroactively think less
of the human actors you'd worked with,
every time you worked with the parakeet?
-Less of myself. [ Laughter ]
No, I think it's so fun to work with animals.
I think, anytime -- I like to eat in scenes, too, though.
I like to be challenged. -Yeah, do it all.
Hey, congratulations. It is such a unique show.
And it's really cool that you told this story.
And thanks so much for being here.
-Thank you. -Always such a pleasure.
You guys, Emmy Rossum!
All episodes of "Angelyne" are available now on Peacock.