Emmy Rossum says her Shameless nude scenes made dating in her 20s 'quite tricky'
Shameless star Emmy Rossum says playing Fiona Gallagher came with an off-screen side effect that left dating in her 20s much more awkward than she’d bargained for.
Everyone knows Shameless was never shy with nudity — but it turns out, the biggest surprises were behind the scenes. Emmy Rossum, who played Fiona Gallagher for nine seasons, has revealed that all those revealing scenes had a far weirder impact on her dating life than anyone might have expected.
Rossum recently sat down with Maria Sharapova for the Pretty Tough podcast and went into detail about how prospective partners would turn up making all sorts of bonkers assumptions, purely based on what they'd seen of her on-screen. She genuinely didn't see it coming — and, frankly, who would?
Rossum told Sharapova, 'It got quite tricky because of the nudity on the show,' later calling some of those preconceived ideas about her 'totally bizarre.'
The Perils of Typecasting — Real Life Edition
If you think being recognised on the street is awkward, try dating someone who thinks they know you because they've seen you acting nude on telly. Rossum described one standout incident: she went on a date with a bloke who wanted a future in politics, but the conversation somehow derailed into whether her Shameless scenes would cause him headaches if he ever ran for office. Not exactly first date material. Rossum didn't mince words about how ludicrous this line of thought sounded to her:
She summed up her reaction to that discussion as 'an insane conversation to have.'
The complications didn't end there. Rossum pointed out that the whole experience of your body being your 'art' — and, by extension, the public property of the audience — blurs a load of boundaries for people who don't quite get the difference between actor and character. She was 24 when she started on Shameless in 2011, properly in her early adulthood, so all of this hit when she was 'still figuring herself out' both as an actor and a human being.
Shameless: A Cultural Juggernaut
Shameless (the US version) ran for 11 seasons, which is basically forever in TVland. Rossum's character, Fiona, was right at the centre — she appeared in 110 episodes before leaving the series in 2019. The show itself revolved around the always-chaotic Gallagher family, taking fictional dysfunction to a new level: poverty, personal disasters, and just about everything that could go wrong, all served up with dark humour and an ensemble that somehow made it work. Big names alongside Rossum included William H. Macy, Jeremy Allen White, Emma Kenney, and the rest of the lot.
The full eleven-season run of Shameless currently pulls an 8.5/10 on IMDb based on around 339,000 votes, with Rotten Tomatoes showing an 82% critics score and 81% audience rating.