Space Cadet Co-Stars Emma Roberts & Poppy Liu on Why Lying To Get a Role Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

In Emma Roberts and Poppy Liu’s new movie, Space Cadet, Roberts’ character Rex lies her way into a training program at NASA. Crazy – we know. So, when SheKnows sat down with them ahead of the premiere on July 4, we obviously had to ask them the question: Have either of them twisted the truth to get a role?

“I truly can’t think of the last time I wrote a resume,” Liu admits. “Is that still a thing?”

So while The Afterparty star hasn’t done it for herself, she remembers embellishing other people’s resumes, much like her character does in the movie. “I was helping my 15-year-old sister write her first resume, and she’s like, ‘But I haven’t done anything’ and I was like, ‘I got you,'” she says. “And I was like, ‘You were Girl Scouts.’ I was like, ‘You are a sales representative for Girl Scout cookies and you were you did public relations, you did consumer user experience, blah, blah, blah.'”

“Her summer job is literally as my babysitter,” Liu adds. “So I guess I wrote her resume to hire her.”

Roberts may not have outright lied in her resume either, but she’s a big proponent of saying yes to certain skills and figuring it out as she goes.

“I always tell people who want to be actors where I say if they’re auditioning I’m like, ‘If they ask if you can ride a horse, say yes and learn. Or if they ask if you can speak another language, say yes and learn,'” Roberts says. “It’s like a good way to acquire a new skill and get a job, but just make sure you actually follow through on it, because otherwise it’ll be embarrassing.”

In Space Cadet, the whole ruse takes place because Rex has been fascinated with outer space ever since she was a child. That innate love was something Roberts could totally relate to.

“I always wanted to be an actor, and then I saw the movie Legally Blonde, and I was like, ‘I want to be a lawyer,'” Roberts says about her childhood aspirations. “But then I was like, ‘I think I just want to play a lawyer.'”

“I love Reese Witherspoon, and I’ve always admired all of the movies she’s done,” Roberts adds. “Legally Blonde [was] a touchstone of me wanting to be an actress, be a lawyer, and then realize I actually wanted to be an actress.”

Liu, on the other hand, had an array of different childhood ambitions.

“I think in classic kid of immigrants mentality, I was very much I have to overachiever,” Liu said. “So when I was younger, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s seven days at the part of the week. Monday, I’ll be a teacher, Tuesday, doctor, Wednesday, lawyer, Thursday, horse trainer, Friday, actress, Saturday, pop star, and Sunday, I was like, I guess I’ll rest that day.'”

“That was like a seven-year-old,” Liu adds. Talk about impressive.

Also in the interview, we asked if Roberts sees the similarities between Space Cadet and Wild Child. After all, fans of the 2008 teen classic have been comparing both movies since the trailer was released.

“What I loved about this movie is it made me nostalgic for movies I watched and movies that I was in in my teens,” she says. “There’s just an earnestness to this movie that I feel like I’ve been missing in movies where everything it’s kind of really, either so so like edgy or sarcastic or kind of like just about people putting themselves down and other people down and this really reminded me of kind of those early to mid-aughts movies where it’s like a fish out of water and like a girl overcoming the odds in an unconventional way and I just love that and I feel like I haven’t seen that in a while.”

“The last few years have been so weird for everyone around the entire world and I just wanted to make a movie that brings joy and some nostalgia,” she adds. “And so I was so excited when I saw that people were like, ‘It’s giving Wild Child vibes’ because that’s also one of my favorite movies I’ve done, other than Space Cadet.”

Their new movie premieres on Prime Video on July 4. Happy watching!

Before you go, click here to see our favorite movies and TV shows about imperfect, complicated women.