Video: Emmy Rossum Reveals Her Preparation for WALDEN Role

Emmy Rossum stopped by Live with Kelly and Mark to talk about the off-Broadway play Walden, which is now in previews at the Tony Kiser Theater. Set in the future, Rossum plays a twin sister in the show, which she describes as "grounded sci-fi," with a script that is "incredibly human [and] really moving."

Rossum says her preparation was the role was quite involved: "We interviewed a space architect...who quite literally developed two potential habitats for life on Mars," she explained. "We interviewed various sets of twins. We met with a climate scientist...So much goes into the learning behind doing this."

She went on to describe the intimacy of the Tony Kiser Theater, where the company performs, saying that sometimes she makes eye contact with the audience members on accident. "You don't want to get taken out of it, but, at the same time, it's like an energetic circle- you get to share it with them." Amy Berryman’s Walden at Second Stage Theater will officially open on November 7th.

Theatrical rising star and O’Neill finalist Amy Berryman brings us a drama about how vast the space can be between two people. In the near future, Stella (Rossum) and her fiancé, Bryan, are waiting at their remote cabin for Stella’s estranged twin sister, Cassie (Zoe Winters). Raised by their astronaut father to be NASA scientists, the twins have taken different paths: Cassie has just returned from a successful moon mission, while Stella has left NASA behind. When they reunite, old conflicts reignite, forcing the sisters to choose between staying on Earth or pursuing a future in space, as humanity’s fate hangs in the balance. Directed by Tony Award nominee Whitney White (Jaja's African Hair Braiding), WALDEN is a thrilling and engrossing new play that wrestles between the gravitational pulls of duty and desire.