Emmy Rossum, 36, defends playing 27-year-old Tom Holland’s mother in The Crowded Room

Emmy Rossum has explained why it “makes sense” for her to play Tom Holland’s mum, despite being just nine years older than him.

The actor plays the Spider-Man star’s mother in new Apple TV+ series The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller adapted from Daniel Keyes’ 1981 novel The Minds of Billy Milligan.

Holland plays Danny Sullivan, a man who is arrested for his involvement in a shooting in 1979. Through a series of interviewers with his interrogator, played by Amanda Seyfried, Danny unveils a mystery surrounding his life.

When the casting for the series was announced, it was noted that Rossum, who is 36, would be playing 27-year-old Holland’s mother, with many expressing confusion over the casting.

According to Rossum, however, it “makes sense” for the show.

She told Entertainment Tonight: “Candy’s a super young mom, she’s almost a child in her own right when she becomes pregnant at age 16. You watch as I age from 25 to 35, which is actually younger than I am now.”

Rossum said that she “fell in love with the relationship between mother and son and the closeness and everything that they’re grieving in later episodes”.

In the show, a younger version of Holland is played by Zachary Golinger, and Rossum said she “especially” loved her scenes with him.

“Our relationship was so beautiful and so I knew everything that we had that I had lost in the scenes with Tom,” she said.

She described the show as “really shocking”, adding: “It really has a lot of pieces of the puzzle to put together.”

The Crowded Room episodes one to three are available to stream Apple TV+ now. Find The Independent’s review of the series here.