Sexy roles just come her way: B.C.-born Lauren Lee Smith plays seductive TV 'weather girl' in latest movie Michael D. Reid, CanWest News Service Published: Thursday, June 21, 2007
It's not everyday a middle-aged movie writer gets to talk about steamy sex with a hottie half his age -- so a recent coffee date with Lauren Lee Smith went down as one for the books.
Smith, 26, had sex on the brain as she sipped tea in a Victoria cafe on a breezy, sunny afternoon.
It was only because she was reminiscing about Lie With Me (2005). And who could forget how Toronto filmmaker Clement Virgo's raw tale of sexual obsession aroused controversy because of its full-frontal nudity and graphic sex?
Lauren Lee Smith is in Victoria shooting scenes for Carl Bessai's drama Normal. The statuesque Vancouver actress -- in real life fresh-faced, girlish and so wholesome she makes Mandy Moore seem like Paris Hilton -- scorched up screens as Leila, an emotionally vacant nymphet who uses sex as a form of empowerment.
"That was a turning point for me personally and career-wise," recalled Smith, who raised a few eyebrows when she accepted the risque role.
Smith also gained a following for her recurring role as lesbian sous chef Lara Perkins in Showtime series The L Word.
She says she savoured getting to showcase her acting chops as Lisa, the overbearing Wisconsin wife of Casey Affleck's cuckolded character who mistakenly believes having a baby will save her marriage in Tony Goldwyn's The Last Kiss.
"Sometimes it's fun just to let it all hang out, like when I played this bitchy, horrible mother," says Smith. "It's fun to show up and not have to worry about looking pretty and getting to scream and yell and be a nasty person and get paid for it."
The Chilliwack-born actress and former model says the truth of the material and the chance to play a character she can sink her teeth into are what first attract her to a film -- all the better if it's Canadian.
This is why she found herself in a Victoria television studio playing Sherri Banks, a seductive TV "weather girl" who has an affair with Walt, a college professor played by Callum Keith Rennie, while shooting scenes for Carl Bessai's drama Normal.
The film, about disparate characters who have lost their ability to communicate following a tragedy, co-stars Carrie Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Andrew Airlie, Gabrielle Rose and Tygh Runyan.
"Sherri uses her sexuality to rein Walt in but things get too serious," explains Smith. Before filming, she rented To Die For, the thriller starring Nicole Kidman as an aspiring TV news star who uses her feminine wiles and sex appeal to get ahead.
She said shooting Normal was a blast because of Bessai's organic and improvisational techniques.
"He really got into it and inspired me," she said. "That's how he works, to where you're feeling the vibe."
Smith, who made her big-screen debut with a tiny role in Get Carter, is no stranger to such adventurous filmmaking.
On Art School Confidential, in which she played a beatnik art student, director Terry Zwigoff asked her to do a "jerky dance." He then demonstrated by weirdly undulating through a routine inspired by a dance in Being John Malkovich.
"Terry's a little bit nutty," laughs Smith. "He was worried I wouldn't get it right so he started moving about like a maniac."
Smith recently survived visits to a morgue in Los Angeles to research her role as a pathology student challenged to devise the perfect murder in MGM's upcoming thriller Pathology.
She will also soon be seen as a Halloween reveller who dresses up as a storybook princess and embarks on a nocturnal adventure with her kid sister, played by Anna Paquin, in Trick 'r Treat, a dark and stylized Halloween horror fantasy.
Bessai's only half-joking when he says he was lucky to get Smith since he'll no longer be able to afford her.
"Oh, that is so not true!" shrieks Smith, after learning what Bessai said.
"I've never considered any of that. Maybe I should be caring more about the strategy of my career."
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