What was it like kissing cutie Jake Gyllenhaal and working in freezing water up to your waist in the big summer environmental disaster film The Day After Tomorrow? We found out from beautiful 17-year-old actress/singer Emmy Rossum who has an interesting background. From an early age, she was in the Children's Chorus at the Metropolitan Opera in New York .The brown-haired, brown-eyed actress has sung in almost every opera of note including "Carmen". She found she liked acting as much as singing and moved on to co-star in soap opera "As the World Turns" and has guest-starred on "The Practice and "Law and Order". Lots of magazines have named Emmy a young "actress to watch". She played Sean Penn's murdered daughter in the recent drama Mystic River and got rave reviews.

Emmy has just wrapped production in the starring role as young opera star Christine in the film version of The Phantom of the Opera for which, of course, she sings all of the songs herself. But, we were meeting with her in L.A.'s Century City to talk about her role as a very bright young high school student caught in a huge, environmental disaster. Emmy, wearing a super cute off-white outfit of off-the-shoulder sweater and very short pleated skirt and matching heels, is another star who just loves to chat about her work, her co-star, her directors, doing a big effects film and how she "melted the ice" with sometimes "goofy" Jake Gyllenhaal.