1.8$ Mpc in a good agreement with the Cepheid distance scale. Finally, studying various ingredients entering the original EPM, Dessart & Hillier ([@dh06]) improved this method and also achieved better agreement to the Cepheid distance with an estimate of $11.5 \pm 1.0$ Mpc.

Starting the investigation of SN 1999em, a normal SN IIP, it is impossible to pass by the well-known and studied SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a peculiar SN IIP. Recent progress in reproducing the bolometric light curve observed in SN 1987A with a modern hydrodynamic model (Utrobin [@utr04]) and in modelling the H$\alpha$ profile and the Ba II 6142 Å line in SN 1987A at the photospheric phase with a time-dependent approach for the SN atmosphere (Utrobin & Chugai [@uc02], [@uc05]) makes this experience very instructive for other SNe IIP. First, it turned out that a good agreement between the hydrodynamic models and the photometric observations of SN 1987A did not guarantee a correct description of this phenomenon as a whole. Second, the strength of the H$\alpha$ line and its profile provided hard constraints on the hydrodynamic models. The most important lesson from this study of SN 1987A is that we have to take 