Emma Roberts checks into 'Hotel for Dogs'

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - At age 15, life was a mystery to Emma Roberts. At 17, her life has gone to the dogs.

Don't worry about the young actress. In her life and career, everything is moving ahead exactly right. Well, she doesn't have her driver's license yet. But that's going to happen soon.

It's her acting roles that we're talking about. Roberts played teen sleuth Nancy Drew in the 2007 film of the same name. Now she's starring in "Hotel for Dogs." She plays a foster child who helps set up a sanctuary for stray canines. The film opens nationwide Friday.

A week before the opening, Roberts is at the W Hotel. She's spending the day chatting about everything from her aunt, Julia Roberts, to her Chihuahua Twiggy. Work keeps her from seeing both as much as she would like.

As Roberts begins to talk about her place in the Hollywood landscape, it quickly becomes obvious that while she isn't old enough to vote, she has the focus of a seasoned veteran when it comes to her career.

Roberts has been able to pack in a lot of acting into only a few years, having started at age 10. Over the next few months, along with "Hotel for Dogs," she has two independent movies _ "Lymelife" and "The Wining Season" _ scheduled to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival. And "Wild Child," which she filmed last year in England, is supposed to hit theaters in May.

None of the other roles came with the same demands of working with so many four-legged "Hotel" co-stars. All of the humans in "Hotel for Dogs" had to be 100 percent ready each time the cameras rolled. A scene would be reshot if the dogs did not perform the way planned.

"If the dogs mess up we do it again. But if the dog does it right, and you mess up, you feel so bad. What if it doesn't do it again? So we had to be on our toes," Roberts says.

Roberts knew as soon as she started reading the script for "Hotel for Dogs" she wanted to be part of the movie no matter how demanding it can be to work with animals. She's been working long enough to know that if a script is boring to her by page 20, she doesn't want to be part of the project.

The scripts she has selected have been more of a career outline than a plan. Roberts is trying to fashion her professional life after the likes of Shia LaBeouf, Anne Hathaway or Natalie Portman. Each was able to make the transition from being a young actor into more mature roles almost without notice.

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"I don't want to do anything outrageous. I have seen some actresses who turn 18 and they do these provocative photo shoots and terrible movies to show something that is not there," Roberts says.

Roberts knows this isn't the first dog movie to hit theaters in the last six months. There've been "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," the animated "Bolt" and the heart-tugging "Marley & Me."

Roberts' film is equally as family friendly. She thinks her dog show has one thing that will draw moviegoers back to theaters.

"I thought this film was special," Roberts says of her decision to be part of Hollywood's dog pack. "While it is about dogs, it is also a movie about family. It has a great message about how family just doesn't have to be those you are related to. It can be those you feel comfortable with."

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© 2009, The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.).