During her childhood, Emma spent a lot of time on the sets of the films that her aunt was starring in. These experiences sparked a desire in Emma, from the age of five, to follow her father and aunt into the film industry. Although her mother initially opposed, wanting her daughter to have a normal childhood, Emma made her acting debut in Ted Demme's 2001 drama Blow — the first movie she ever auditioned for — at the age of nine. In the film she portrayed Kristina Jung, the daughter of Johnny Depp's character, cocaine smuggler George Jung. As the film is rated R, her mother reportedly will not allow Emma to see it before she turns eighteen. However, director Ted Demme produced a tape for her that featured only the scenes she appeared in.
In 2001, Emma also had a role in Leif Tilden's 10-minute short bigLove (which also starred her future step-father, Kelly Nickels), and was an uncredited extra in one of Julia Roberts' scenes in America's Sweethearts. She went on to appear in smaller roles in two family films: in 2002's Grand Champion, as the sister of the main character Buddy (Jacob Fisher); and in 2003's Spymate, as the kidnapped daughter of former secret agent Mike Muggins (Chris Potter), who tries to rescue her with the help of a spy monkey. Grand Champion had a brief theatrical release in August 2004, hile Spymate was not released until February 2006, when it was given a theatrical run in Canada, followed by its DVD release in April 2006. In August 2003, Emma was scheduled to shoot an independent film called Daisy Winters, starring as the title character, alongside Rachel Weisz. However, the film, which would have been Emma's first leading role, never began shooting due to financial problems.
Emma became a teen idol at the age of thirteen, starring as the lead character Addie Singer in the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous, which debuted in September 2004. While Nickelodeon had wanted to cast her for the role from the beginning, series creator Sue Rose was not convinced of her acting ability until she saw Emma auditioning for the role, singing a song and playing along on the guitar. The teen sitcom earned Emma a Teen Choice Award nomination and two Young Artist Award nominations in 2005. The series became one of the network's most-watched programs and was quickly recommissioned for a second season.
As her character on Unfabulous writes songs and plays guitar, Nickelodeon soon considered a career in music for Emma as well, following the lead of other actress/pop singers such as Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. Emma first contributed the song "If I Had It My Way" to the soundtrack of Disney's 2005 film Ice Princess. This was followed by her debut album, "Unfabulous and More: Emma Roberts", which was released on September 27, 2005 and is featured as the soundtrack to Unfabulous. The album was rather unsuccessful: it peaked at #46 on the Billboard's Top Heatseekers, and the two music videos released simultanious to promote the album, "I Wanna Be" and "Dummy", received only little airplay.
In 2006, Emma returned to the big screen, starring alongside Sara Paxton and singer JoJo in Aquamarine. In the film two teenagers (played by Emma and JoJo) find a mermaid (Sara) in their swimming pool. Emma also contributed a cover version of Weezer's 2001 single "Island in the Sun" to the film's soundtrack. On May 15, 2006 she was featured on MTV's Punk'd with pop singer Teddy Geiger.
In early 2006, Emma also shot Nancy Drew, in which she stars in the title role of teen detective Nancy Drew, and which is set to be released June 15, 2007. She also signed on to star in Camp Couture (produced by her mother, Kelly Cunningham), Bras and Broomsticks (based on the books by Sarah Mlynowski), and Rodeo Gal.
Emma recently signed a contract with Dooney & Bourke, becoming their new spokesmodel. She is also designing her own Dooney & Bourke handbag, named after her.
In 2008 Emma had a leading role in the film Wild Child which has been released in other countries except the US which is currently still waiting for a release date. In 2009 she has Hotel For Dogs(January 16th 2009) Which is based off the book by Lois Duncan. She then has two indie films being released in 2009, Lymelife(April 2009) and The Winning Season. She will also make a cameo in a Japan version of Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. She was also annouced as the new face of Neutrogena and will be endorsing the product in tv ads and print ads.
