Mutant X Interviews: Lauren Lee Smith ('03 S2 DVD - uncut)

Pic from Visimag

Lauren Lee Smith: S2 DVD Extras, uncut version. *Property of Katianna's Place.

Lauren Lee Smith "Emma DeLauro"

I am Lauren Lee Smith, and I play Emma DeLauro and we are in Boyd Park, if I'm correct… yes.

I think what the deal with that was, the first two episodes Emma wasn't really part of the team yet and she was supposed to be sort of like this party girl, crazy girl, so that's what I'm assuming. And I guess, you know, once you join on Mutant X you just have to assume you're going to be wearing tight leather. It's part of the deal, man. It's part of the contract. *laughs* I was totally fine with that though, and made some pretty amazing costumes. Yeah, I know.

Wait a minute, did they have that already ready for her, I know, there was that whole "Emmappeal" patent leather thing. I know, that was pretty funny actually.

For season one Emma was a telempath, so pretty much she can receive and transmit feelings and emotions from people. So she can, you know, she can really screw people over pretty much with her mind and make them do all sorts of crazy things and…pretty much whatever she wants. *laughs* Which is actually, I think, part of the reason, too, why her powers have evolved because I know there was a question of, well if she can really make people do whatever she wants with her mind then why wouldn't she just do this or that or take over the bloody world. So for season two, actually the last episode for season one all of our powers sort of evolved and I got this new 'psionic blast'. Which is a lot of fun. I get this like energy ball on my forehead and I can shoot people. Which is good too, because last year I didn't really have to do that much fighting (thank god) but the fighting that I did have to do - I mean Emma doesn't come from any fighting background or anything, so it's not likely that she would just know how to just go out there and kick butt. So this gives me a way to have a physical power and actually hurt people without having to karate chop, you know. *laughs* Do the flying kicks and stuff. Which I know, you know, Vicky and Victor have trained before and they come from that so…

There's parts of it that are a lot of fun and you know it's just fun getting to kick these big stunt guy's butts. But it's really, really hard and I watch Vicky and Victor and… especially Vicky sometimes on those wires and it’s just like hours and hours on these harnesses doing flips and, you know, I can imagine how dizzy she must be. And all the bruises and everything. So for that reason I'm glad. I'm sort of a wuss. I'm much happier with having my little mind blast.

Well I think the really cool thing with Emma is, and I think that this is something that I've talked about with the writers and producers and stuff, is that if someone is telempathic and they are reading people's emotions and stuff, they would obviously, they would be very screwed up, you know. They should be up and down and all over the show. So I think that's something we're going to play with. Because, you know, god, it's got to be confusing and it's got to drive her crazy sometimes and it's got to make her angry and it's got to make her upset and, you know, highly emotional. So that's something that I really like about my character. It's a lot of fun, you know, you never know what you're going to get with Emma.

You know it's really funny, when I first saw it I'm like, looking around and going 'holy crap, this is like, exactly my room at home.' It was really bizarre like everything, down to like the pictures and everything. I don't know, I think that she's probably been influenced a lot by Adam because I know that last year he was trying to get her to mellow out a little bit by doing a little meditation *laughs* and sorting all the stuff out in her mind so I think that that's part of it.

I think that initially she was just extremely frightened of the whole thing. And I don't think that she wanted to believe that she had these powers. She just sort of wanted to ignore them. And I know, you know, the beginning of the last season she was really fighting that for the most part and fighting against whatever it was that she had. And I think, especially for season two she's just, she's got a lot more confident with her powers. Especially now because of, I think that she feels that she's more a part of the team and she has something a little bit more to contribute. And I think that it's like her family now.

I would say that, you know, Adam is sort of like the father figure of all of us to a certain degree. And then with Jesse and Shalimar and Brennan, I think it's like they're my brothers and sisters. I think originally Emma had a bit of a crush on Brennan but *laughs* they didn't really take that anywhere. So… So, I don't know. Maybe she'll start to have a crush on Jesse or something. We'll see. But as of now I think they want to keep it very much that we are a family.

You know, someone had said that they had read that on the internet too, somewhere. But I don't see that. I think… You're looking at me like 'hmm, really?' *laughs* As far as I can tell, we… him and I certainly haven't been intentionally playing that… but if they would go that route, that would be very… interesting? *laughs* No, interesting. It could take it to a whole new level.

We still have our comm. links *shows that she's wearing hers* we have to keep in touch with everyone. Yup.

Oh my gosh. We have all, I mean, I can't even tell you how many rings we all have gone through. Because, you know, like you, after wearing it for so long, you forget about it, you take them home and they go down the sink or you lose them everywhere. We all have gone through probably five rings each. And now like every day when we come to set they're like, 'd'you have your ring? d'you have your ring?' 'yes, I have my ring.' I think they had to make a whole bunch of much cheaper versions for us.

All the sets have completely changed, there's stuff to do now everywhere, it's not so… kind of sterile and I think that just makes it more real. There's, you know, we're going to have more people and we're going to be out a lot more and I think that's definitely going to help a lot. I think that, you know. People will… people will like it, damn it.

You know when we first came to Toronto, just with the camera tests and stuff, they were playing around with all kind of ideas, and it just seemed to be the best. And I know that this season we were having quite a lot of trouble with what we were supposed to be doing with the psionic blast. Originally we had it were they were coming around and doing the whole look thing again, and then for one episode - I don't know if you can even notice or not - they had me going like 'pshiew' *mimics throwing her head back in recoil* and I'm like no, no, let's not do that one. Coz I could imagine like a machine gun going 'pshiew pshiew'. So now I think it's all going to be in post. You know I can think about it and then I form the blast and then it shoots out.

I think that you would always want to evolve the character and I think that's what's so great about playing a mutant. Because you never know what's going to happen. And in a lot of these last episodes we've been showing - with other guest mutants that come on - what has happened to them and how they've evolved and it's not necessarily a good thing. And it sort of leaves the question as to 'well what's going to happen to us?' Down the road what's going to start changing next and, you know, is Shalimar going to start growing hair all over like in this episode, where we have the big hairy beast guys. And is Emma going to become a complete schizophrenic or, you know, who knows. And that's what's really fun about science fiction, you can really take it anywhere and play around.

Actually, you know what, I was not. I had never really been into science fiction before this. I think the only, the one science fiction movie that I really liked was 'Them' that I remember seeing years ago. And I have an obsession with ants, like I have a tattoo of an ant and I have an ant ring and stuff. So I was like 'yeah, Them'. And that was like the only thing that I had really seen, but I have an older brother who is very much into science fiction and comic books and stuff. So when he heard about this he was like 'yeah, right on'.

I got the part… I was living in Vancouver and I put myself on tape and I kinda forgot about it. I hadn't really heard anything for about a month or so and then my agent got a call saying 'well, you know we're interested if she wants to fly herself to LA for the testings and stuff then, that would be great.' Sort of that's not usually a very good sign, you know, if you wanna fly yourself to LA, so I was like, well no, I don't really think they're that serious, if they're not willing to send me down there. So I kind of waited around a bit more, about a month passed and I guess they kept looking. And then I got a call again and they were in Toronto and they flew me out the next day and, tested, read for everybody and it was really cool because they told me right after the audition, you know, usually you don't find out for a week or so after. I'm sitting in the waiting room after, ready to get on a plane and I hate flying and they all came out and told me, so that was a great plane ride home. *laughs* Probably the best plane ride home.

Yeah, we have a lot of fun. I think we're very, very lucky. I mean, we all get along so well. I mean, I haven't really, I mean, I haven't done a TV series before, but I've heard stories of cast members just not getting along and it just being a nightmare. So I think we're very, very lucky we all really like each other.

I'd love Emma to get a little bit more crazy. You know it's always fun to play the screwed up girl so I'd love if her emotions just started getting all out of whack and she doesn't know what she's doing. And also I have to say the Double Vision episode was so much fun. So much fun getting to play the bad part of Emma, so it would be really cool to get to so something like that again.

It's really hard and I usually do, I usually have my computer set up, but I'm completely computer retarded, I have no idea. So it's down and it's been down for like the last six months so I haven't really been able to keep up with it. But usually, yeah. I try to, definitely. I think that's really important.

I went to one… no two, no one… One last year. And it was OK. It was very odd. I get really, really nervous in front of big crowds, like I… public speaking to me is like 'ugh' but I've been talking to Vicky and she's a pro and says that it's not big deal you just have to go out there and do it and she said she'd help me through it. So yeah, it would be fun to get to do that.

Oh, it's bizarre, the one we went to last year, the show hadn't even aired yet and there were like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and it was like 'what? You know, we haven't even aired yet?' They don't even know what's going on and they're already like these die-hard fans. So, yeah, it's very bizarre. To see people all dressed up and it's great, it's great.

The little bell look? *sweeps hands in the shape of her old hair-do.* I don't know. I got a few letters on my website and a couple of letters sent to me saying 'yeah, I love your hair, I'm going as Emma for halloween' or something. I'm like 'what!?' *laughs*

She has, I know. We've got a whole new look this season. But that's fun. It's fun to mix it up and change it around and…

Interviewer: Do the dressing up.

Yeah, come on, I'm a girl. Girls like to do that kinda stuff.

You know, I don't think it's that hard because we have some pretty amazing writers. And if there's anything that feels a little bit too… you know with dialogue and stuff, if it's a little bit hard to say or a little bit comic book-ish they're really open and we can just call them up and they really help us out. So it hasn't really… no, I think it's pretty good.

I think so, I think I do. And like I said, with Emma I think it's going to be each episode is a whole new thing. I'll just take it one step at a time and see what comes. And I don't really have a plan for Emma because I just want to wait and see what happens.

Yes, very much so. Yeah, every episode is a whole new thing. Especially with season two, it's like a completely new show really, it is. And it's really opened the doors I think, for a lot of really neat things to come.

Wow… I would love to see our powers evolve even more. I would love to see… You know, who knows? I would love to see… everything sort of fall apart maybe? And then see what happens. With Adam and everything. And everything just comes crashing down and we have to sort of start from square one, I mean that would be interesting. There are so many possibilities. I think it's endless possibilities.

I think it would definitely be Double Vision because it was really hard. You know, some days we would go right from the bad Emma and then it was the good Emma. So it was very back and forth and it was challenging, but that was the fun part. And also Nothing To Fear was a fantastic episode, I think that was definitely one of my favourites. Because it was very dark.

Absolutely. Absolutely it is. And you know, because there's five of us it's not like there's an insane work schedule. I mean yeah, it's a lot of work and stuff, but it's not like we're all in every single scene every day so we do get time off. Like I got to go home for the weekend and stuff so, you know, and you come back all refreshed and excited and, like I said, we all like each other so, coming in to your work you come in and hang out with your friends and get to play around and do crazy stuff. Act like you're seeing, god knows what, you know.

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