In the film Emma plays the iconic teenage sleuth and of course she’s stumbled onto a new mystery to solve. Here is the synopsis:

EMMA ROBERTS stars as the resourceful teen detective, who leaves her friendly hometown of River Heights for the West Coast and enrolls at Hollywood High School.  There, her unique personal style immediately sets her apart from her self-absorbed, fast-living peers, especially reigning fashionistas Inga and Trish, who can’t quite figure her out but know that everything about her is different—from her super-smarts and retro manners to her perfect picnic lunches and penny loafers. Their less-than-warm reception might bother the average new girl in town, but not Nancy.  She has more important things to think about—namely, a brand new mystery. 

Even though she promised her worried Dad (TATE DONOVAN) that she’d quit the “sleuthing” business, it isn’t long before Nancy gets a lead on one of the greatest unsolved cases of all time: the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of famous actress Dehlia Draycott.  It happens that the Drews are staying in the former Draycott Mansion, long reputed to be haunted and now a site where some very strange things have been happening.  

While you might not think this film would be a big summer entry, I can see it doing quite well. There are never enough films that cater to families and this is safe for everyone. I’m sure many mothers and daughters will take in "Nancy Drew" this weekend.

As always you can listen to the audio of the roundtable interview by clicking here. It’s an MP3 so it’s easily placed on an iPod or portable player.

I also got to interview Max Thieriot & Josh Flitter (two of Nancy Drew’s friends in the movie) and while I don’t have the time to transcribe it, you can listen to their interview by clicking here.

"Nancy Drew" opens everywhere this Friday.

Question: How are you?

Emma Roberts: Good, how are you?

On the cover of the Los Angeles Times today, how does it feel?

It’s so exciting. I couldn’t believe when I saw the L.A. Times, I was like wow, that’s crazy. And I just having a really good time doing everything and it’s exciting to see everything come together.

Can you talk about what attracted you to doing this project?

I mean, Nancy Drew is such an iconic character and she’s a really, really great character that’s been around for decades so I read the script and I instantly clicked with it and loved the character and loved the whole storyline.

Have you ever read the books?

I didn’t read them when I was younger but a read a few after I got the part.

Can you say something about Nancy Drew as compared to yourself?

I mean, we’re both alike in some ways. We’re determined, ambitious, curious but I think she’s much more of a neat freak than I am.

I also read that she’s a bit old-fashioned.

She’s very old-fashioned.

What do you think about her clothes?

Personally I liked going to the set everyday and getting to dress up as her and all the clothes were made one-of-a-kind for the movie by the costume designer Jeffery Kurland which I just thought was really cool that we were using things that nobody else would be wearing just because they were just for us.

I can’t imagine that you were ever in the position of being made fun of by girls at school for what you were wearing or anything.  Has anyone ever been mean to you?

I mean, no, no. Luckily I’ve had great school experiences and haven’t had any horror stories, but actually when I was shooting the movie and I was dressed up as her and we were shooting at a real high school and I think a lot of the kids didn’t know we were shooting there so I was walking around and a lot of them were like looking at me and laughing at me.  We were at Hollywood High and I was walking to my trailer and these girls were like pointing and laughing at me and I just looked at them and thought that was so rude.  Then I turned around and hit my face into one of the trailers.  I was really embarrassing.

So what advise would you give to girls who are going through a difficult time at school like that?  How should they handle it?

I get asked that question a lot.  It’s just so tough because you really can’t do anything about it because wherever you go to school there will always be like cliques and always be those girls do you know what I mean?  People who say there aren’t cliques at their school are lying because there are cliques everywhere you know, but I would just say you just have to find a group of friends and try not to let it bother you and don’t feed into it. So, that’s what I would say.

You started really early acting.  What did your friends say or react when…

They thought it was really cool.  I mean, all my friends have been really supportive of me and they all came with me to the premiere yesterday.  I have a really good group of friends so I’m really lucky.

Did you watch any of the older Nancy Drew films?

I saw some of the old TV shows that used to be on TV.  Now they’re on like the old movie channel, so I watched a few of those because they seemed to be having marathons of those on recently probably because the movie’s coming out.

What was the hardest part of playing Nancy Drew?

Probably, I mean, just like getting into the character was really fun but definitely different from anything I’ve ever done.  They cut my hair and they dyed it and I went to the set everyday and the hair and makeup was just so different than anything I was used to and the same with the wardrobe but that’s what made it really fun.  I don’t think its fun to always play the same character over and over again. You want to do something different.

Who’s your favorite detective in fiction?

Nancy Drew.  Honesty, yeah.  Apart from Nancy Drew I guess Sherlock Holmes, you know, another cool detective.  I think Nancy Drew is so cool because she really is like…when she first came out in the books there weren’t a lot of young teen girls that independent and that sure of themselves and stuff like that at least not in movies and books. There still aren’t many, I can’t think of any. So, I think that’s really cool about her.

Did you keep any of the outfits?

I didn’t, no.  I don’t know what they did with them.  They were all made for the movie so they probably kept them somewhere.

What was your favorite one out of all the outfits?

I mean, I loved the little pink tweed little dress that I wore on the first day of school with the knee socks. I thought that was really cute.

Have you ever had a party where it’s gotten out of control?

I haven’t.  I don’t like throw parties really.  I don’t want to get in trouble. 

What about slumber parties with your girlfriends?

Yeah, we do that a lot.  We go to other people’s parties, but we never really throw parties. We just have our little slumber parties sometimes with a bunch of girls.

What do you do?  Watch movies?

We watch movies, we go swimming. We’ll go out the dinner usually like Sushi or something. 

What movies do you watch?

Whatever is really out at the time we’ll like go see or rent or something.

I have to ask.  Did you follow Heroes last season?

I watched the first few episodes then I stopped watching it because my TiVo broke so I never like watched TV after that.

Did you want to keep up with it?

I did.  It’s such a good show.  I still try to catch it sometimes but I never know what is going on now.

You have some family on it…

Yeah, my dad is on that show.  I thought that was really cool though just because it’s a really good show I mean from what I’ve watched of it.

I’ll of course follow up with now that this film is done I’m sure you have other stuff lined up.  Can you talk about some of your future projects?

Yeah, I’m going to England actually in like a week and a half to start shooting a new movie called Wild Child.  It’s like totally opposite Nancy Drew so I’m really excited for it.  It’s for a working title and it’s about kind of out of control Malibu princess who gets shipped off to boarding school in England.  She goes through a whole journey over there and it’s really funny.

What sort of bad things do you get up to in boarding school then?

She gets shipped to boarding school because she doesn’t really listen to her dad and she kind of just does what she wants to do when she wants to do it and she very like sassy and then she gets to boarding school and doesn’t want to abide by any of the rules so it gets her into some trouble.

It must have been like every girl’s dream to play against Johnny Depp.

Yeah.

Did you get any tips or tricks from him?

I mean I was so young when I worked with him I didn’t even realize I was working with one of the greatest actors on the earth.  I was like he’s cool, you know, I was 9 or 10, then Pirates of the Caribbean came out and I was like “oh my God”.

Have you run into him since?

Yeah.  I’ve seen him a little bit but not too much because obviously he’s very, very busy and so am I so but he was such a cool guy.

What actors would you like to work with in the future?

I love Drew Barrymore.  I would love to work with her. I really like Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon.  I would love to work with a bunch of those people.  I love to just work with new people in general.  It’s always really fun.

Nancy Drew obviously likes lemon bars and things like that.  What’s your biggest weakness when it comes to food?

I love dark chocolate. I love it.  I don’t like vegetables at all, but I love Sushi.  I’m obsessed with Sushi. 

What’s the key to staying grounded?

My friends and my family keep me grounded and none of them treat me any differently now that I’m acting or anything.  It’s cool because a lot of my friends are kind of either they’re in the business or their families are kind of in the business so it’s not really like oh my God to them which is good and they understand how busy I am, you know. Because it’s hard when you’re always busy and your friends are like why don’t you ever hang out and stuff like that.

So what do you miss having time for at the moment?

My friends.  I’m really sad because I’m leaving all summer to go to England but I’m so excited for the movie, but you know to leave all my friends and stuff like that but I’ll see them when I get back.

Continued on the next page ----------->

Page 2 >>>