Casting Emma Roberts: A Shrewd Choice

Which brings us back to Mom.

Kelly Cunningham certainly has a healthy dose of pride in her daughter's accomplishments -- and her public and professional behavior -- but she's not one to sugarcoat. Sassy? Try "mouthy," to quote Mom.

"Come on," Cunningham says, "no one's perfect. By the time she's 18 years old, she'll probably have been grounded 100,000 times."

Budding princess? Wild child? Emma, it appears, is . . . a teenager.

Not your average teenager, of course. There's nothing run-of-the-mill about taking a trip to Las Vegas to visit Aunt Julia at work and hanging out with George Clooney during the filming of "Ocean's Eleven." Or giving a joint reading with Laura Bush at a private girls' school, as Emma did on her recent visit to Washington. This girl is not only the niece of an actor, she's the daughter of one -- her father is Eric Roberts.

But she also has a mom (her parents split when she was a baby, and her mother has primary custody) who wouldn't buy her a car for her 16th birthday, insists on handwritten thank-you notes and grounds her regularly. In fact, Emma got grounded -- for talking back, as usual -- just the week before the publicity tour. It was a 21st-century version of grounding: no iPod, no cellphone and no computer access for four days. When Cunningham returned her electronic toys a day early for good behavior, Emma cried with happiness.

"I said, 'You're crying over a cellphone?!' " Cunningham recalls, laughing.

No one knows what Emma will be like at 18, 19, 20. (Though it might be telling that both she and her mother talk of her commitment to attend college.) But right now she's this engaging mix of gushing teenage girl and seasoned professional. One minute, she can be completely composed in front of a camera; the next, she's bubbling over with admiration for the Olsen twins.

"I love Mary-Kate and Ashley," she says. "I still love them, but I loved them when I was younger. I saw them at a Chanel fashion show and I almost, like, fainted."

The girl in her still lights up at the mention of American Girl dolls -- "I collected them, and the clothes and beds and everything," she says -- and willingly watches endless replays of "High School Musical" to appease her 6-year-old sister, Grace (she's Cunningham's daughter with musician husband Kelly Nickels). Emma has the same friends she made in middle school, she and her mom both say, and though she has been home-schooled the past few years to accommodate her work schedule, she attends their football games and formals.

"She's a good egg, especially when you compare her to other girls," says Elizabeth Allen, who directed "Aquamarine," a 2006 fantasy that provided Emma's biggest prior film role.

"We're lacking role models for young girls, for audience members, and that's why I'm happy Emma is so successful. . . . She's not a goody-goody, but, because of Kelly, she's not going to be raging out of control."