American Horror Story star Emma Roberts has opened up about the perception of her as a ‘nepo baby’.
While promoting her upcoming film, Space Cadet, she made an appearance on the Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi podcast, where discussed the ‘nepo baby’ title (Roberts’ aunt is Julia Roberts, and her father is actor, Eric Roberts), as well as claiming fans don’t see the failures that go on behind the scenes.
“That’s the thing that I always talk about — people kind of only see your wins because they only see when you’re on the poster of a movie. They don’t see all the rejection along the way,” she told host Bozzi.
“That’s why I’m always very open about things I’ve auditioned for and haven’t gotten the part for. I think it’s important to talk about – otherwise people just think everything’s been so great and linear and easy, and no, it’s not at all. But of course it looks like that to the outside perspective or to the naked eye.”
Roberts, who got her first role at nine years old in 2001’s Blow, has starred in films like Wild Child and Nancy Drew, and more recently appeared alongside Kim Kardashian in American Horror Story.
Touching on her family connections, she said: “I think there’s two sides of the coin. People like to say: ‘You know, you have a leg up because you have family in the industry’.
“But then the other side to that is you have to prove yourself more. Also, if people don’t have good experiences with other people in your family, then you’ll never get a chance.”
Referencing her three-time Golden Globe-nominated father, she continued: “I think there’s something to be said where everybody loves the kind of overnight success story. And so if you’re kind of not the girl from the middle of nowhere that broke into Hollywood, there’s kind of an eye roll of like ‘Well, your dad was this.’”
Whilst joking that actors like George Clooney could be considered ‘nepo babies’ (Clooney’s aunt was White Christmas star and singer Rosemary Clooney), Roberts nodded to the sexism behind the term, which singer Lily Allen recently condemned.
“I feel like young girls get it harder with the nepo baby thing,” she said. “I don’t really see people calling out sons of famous actors — not that they should be called out. I don’t think anyone should be called out for wanting to follow their dream.”