“I am on the hunt,” Emily Hampshire declares, on the phone from her home in Los Angeles.
The Canadian actress is meeting with designers to find an outfit for the red carpet at TIFF, where her film My Awkward Sexual Adventure will be showcased on Sept. 11.
“I haven’t decided on anything,” she says. “I’m going to a few designers here and then when I get to Toronto I’m going to go to some Canadian designers.”
In the film, Hampshire plays a fiscally-irresponsible stripper who agrees to help teach an accountant (Jonas Chernick) how to be a better lover in exchange for his help managing her finances.
“It’s a sex comedy,” Hampshire explains, in her first interview for the movie. “It’s kind of lovely, though. There’s a sweet love story that runs through it.”
Still, Hampshire says My Awkward Sexual Adventure is yet another of her movies she’d prefer her father didn’t watch. (She has appeared fully nude in several films, including the 2004 incest drama Blood and 2010’s Good Neighbours opposite Jay Baruchel.) “There’s not a lot of movies I’ve made that my dad can see,” she admits.
The actress, who turns 31 on Wednesday, says she was thrilled to find out the film was chosen for TIFF, where it is part of the Contemporary World Cinema program. “Usually you don’t get this kind of film at TIFF,” says Hampshire. “You usually get much darker, arty films.”
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Hampshire has been at the festival before – for Blood as well as 2006’s Snow Cake and 2009’s The Trotsky – but she’s more excited about My Awkward Sexual Adventure being there.
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“Making this movie really changed my life as an actor,” she explains, giving credit to director Sean Garrity. “I had such an amazing experience on this film, which is weird because it doesn’t seem like it’s that kind of movie that would be a great acting experience – but boy was it ever.”
Filming in Winnipeg was also a learning experience for Hampshire.
“It’s terribly cold there,” she recalls. “Some of the drivers were telling me how cold it’s going to be and I was like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, I used to snowshoe to school.’ I was so wrong. The Winnipeg cold is different than anything I have ever experienced. I wanted to die.”
Born in Montreal, Hampshire caught the acting bug during a performance of Les Miserables when she was only 11 years old. She was encouraged to pursue a career in front of cameras by the vice-principal of the Catholic private school for girls she attended. In her mid-teens, Hampshire moved to Toronto and landed roles on TV and in a handful of movies.
Hampshire was part of the ensemble cast of Made in Canada that won a Gemini Award in 2001 and she went on to earn three Genie nominations for her work on the big screen.
Although she moved to Los Angeles five years ago with her husband Matthew Smith, she has continued to work in her native country. Hampshire just wrapped All the Wrong Reasons co-starring Cory Monteith in Halifax.
Last year she was back in Toronto working for director David Cronenberg on Cosmopolis opposite Robert Pattinson. “I think I had been under a rock for the last few years and I was the only person who hadn’t seen Twilight,” Hampshire admits, “so I knew of Rob, of course, but before I shot it I couldn’t really gauge what that was going to be like. What I learned is, boy it is quite a crazy existence for him.”
Cosmopolis got Hampshire a spot on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May. “I don’t feel like I was really there,” she says. “Cannes was just crazy. I think because it was so new to me.”
Hampshire says she feels more comfortable at TIFF. “As much as it is a place to celebrate our movies, it’s also a place I get to see my friends that in the industry and connect with people. I feel like I am very welcome at TIFF and I think it’s because I’m Canadian and I’ve been there a bunch of times. I feel a part of it that I didn’t at Cannes.”
Hampshire also feels like a part of Los Angeles now that she and Smith have settled in “very close to skid row” in the city’s downtown. “Most people don’t know it’s is a liveable place yet. It’s really changed a lot.”
The rising star admits she used to feel ashamed about loving Los Angeles. “Then I realized that L.A. is not a place to be a tourist. It’s a place you have to commit to and then when you do you really find that you can have anything you want here.”
Well, maybe not anything. “There really should be a poutine stand here,” Hampshire says. “My husband is convinced if he builds a poutine stand that he will be a millionaire, and I think he’s right.
“I don’t know if I want someone stealing his idea because that could be our ticket.”
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