Watch Emma Roberts Sing Carly Rae Jepsen in 'Space Cadet' Exclusive Clip

Photo Credit: Eric Liebowitz/Prime Video

Emma Roberts is channeling her inner Carly Rae Jepsen. In her new movie Space Cadet, the actor puts her own special spin on Jepsen's enduring, beloved hit “Call Me Maybe,” but not in the way you might think.

The film, which debuts on July 4, stars Roberts as Tiffany “Rex” Simpson, a party girl who ends up being selected to join NASA and possibly go to space despite having zero official astronaut experience whatsoever, minus a childhood love for space.

In a recently released clip from the forthcoming movie, Roberts and her fellow hopefuls are training for their potential mission by running on treadmills, and Roberts-as-Rex begins to sing “Call Me Maybe” in efforts to shift the focus from the workout to something much more fun, i.e. the ultimate musical earworm of the 2010s. No, it's not a popstar-worthy performance given that Rex is wearing a heart rate monitor and jogging on a treadmill, but it does the trick, and several of the other recruits join in. (Roberts has sung for roles before, including songs for Ice Princess and her TV series Unfabulous.)

According to Roberts, she wasn't actually singing on the treadmill, which is seriously hard work. (Just ask Taylor Swift, who prepped for the Eras Tour by singing the setlist on a tread.) “I loved singing in this scene,” she told Teen Vogue. "The hardest part of filming it was pretending the treadmills were on when they were actually off for sound reasons! Pretending to run is way harder than the singing was."

Like us, Emma Roberts has fond memories of the “Call Me Maybe” heyday; she even remembers where she was when she heard it for the first time. “I was in a taxi in NYC when my best friend [and Belletrist cofounder] Karah said she had to play a song for me on her phone,” Roberts reminisced. "We listened to it 10 times. The song makes me smile whenever I hear it.”

Space Cadet is about believing in yourself and chasing your dreams, even when they seem silly to everyone else. Yes, she's an “unconventional candidate” with a made-up resume, but Rex says she was “born to to do this,” and by “this” she means literally going to space. “Once you let your dreams out of the box, you can't just shove them back in!” she says.

Space Cadet premieres on July 4 on Prime Video and also stars Gabrielle Union, Poppy Liu, Kuhoo Verma, and Tom Hopper. Watch the exclusive clip below:


Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue


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