‘Shameless’ Star Emmy Rossum Opens Up About Being Asked To Wear A Bikini For An Audition

Emmy Rossum could be outrageous and bold on Showtime’s “Shameless,” but she knows when to set limits in real life. In fact, the 30-year-old once said no to a project due to an uncomfortable audition.

On Thursday, Rossum joined the roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, and it was during this candid conversation with her fellow stars that she discussed the shady audition. When she was asked if she had faced some sexism issues in the past, Rossum shared the story the time she was asked to go to an audition with nothing but a bikini on.

“A year ago, my agent called me and was like, ‘I’m so embarrassed to make this call, but there’s a big movie and they’re going to offer it to you. They really love your work on [‘Shameless’]. But the director wants you to come into his office in a bikini,’” Rossum said.

READ: ‘Shameless’ Season 8: What should happen when Fiona and Frank return?

She added that her agent made it clear that the director did not want her to audition for the role because it was already hers. However, she needed to show up in a bikini to seal the deal. Explaining why the director had asked her to do that, Rossum said, “He wanted to know if I was fat now. That was basically the question.”

She then admitted that she initially thought of going for the role anyway. “For a second, I was like, ‘Would I do it? Send me the script. Maybe the character is in a bikini in the movie,’” she said.

So what was the deal breaker for Rossum? Well, she found out that the character she would be portraying in the project wasn’t really going to do a bikini scene, let alone a nude scene, as pointed out by Us Weekly. “[It was like], ‘We really love your work, but we just want to see how tight your [buttocks] is,’” she said, before adding, “Are you … kidding me? Last time I checked, I’m not a … model.”

Apart from this, Rossum clarified that she has never done any sexual favors to snag a project. “I’ve never been in a situation where somebody asked me to do something really obviously physical in exchange for [a job], like a pay-to-play kind of situation,” she explained.

Meanwhile, also part of the roundtable was Pamela Adlon, who also shared her own awkward experience with sexism in the industry. The 50-year-old “Californication” alum revealed that at 15, she was asked to drop her towel after a pool scene, as per Jezebel.

She added that when she was asked to kiss a boy, the director told her: “An apple is an apple, a plum is a plum. A kiss isn’t a kiss without the tongue.” The actress then said, “And I was like, ‘I’m going to die.’”