During Emily Hampshire’s wedding three years ago, the best man toasted her saying, “Everybody in the room is secretly in love with Emily.”
What’s not to love? The Montreal-born actress is beyond adorable – part Zooey Deschanel, part Audrey Tautou. She is part irrepressible “It Girl”; part gamine.
Her husband is Matthew Smith, a former soccer player turned agent-in-training at William Morris talent agency.
“He always wanted to be a sports agent like Jerry Maguire,” she says, trying on jeans at Diesel while in Toronto from Los Angeles to promote the TIFF film The Trotsky, directed by pal Jacob Tierney, her former roomie. They have known each other since 1999 when they both appeared in The Life Before This.
In Trotsky, Jay Baruchel plays Leon, who believes he is the reincarnation of Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. The film, shot in Montreal, has been described as “a Bolshevik Ferris Bueller.” Hampshire allows that it is “a commie comedy.
“Jay Baruchel still lives in NDG (Notre Dame de Grâce) in Montreal,” she says. “He bought the house next door to his mother.”
How Canadian is that?
“He has a Canadian flag tattoo. I called him the Mayor of Montreal on the Trotsky set.”
Hampshire plays lawyer Alexandra Leith, the love interest.
“I’m the older woman (although she is only three years older than Baruchel),” she explains. “Leon is 17 years old. Because my name is Alexandra and I am 10 years older, he believes we’re destined to be married. Being Jay, he is the most charming kid in the universe and he wins me over.”
Hampshire just turned 30 and is comfy in her perfect porcelain skin.
“I don’t wish to be in my 20s ever again,” she insists. “In your 30s, you start to know who you are.
“It is my first adult, leading-lady role in a festival film. After I did Boy Meets Girl in 1998, I got `quirky’ character parts that served me well. Jacob knows me differently and wants to see me in a role that uses my adult voice. He wanted me to be in a part where I can be as smart as I am.”
Geneviève Bujold, who plays a school board commissioner in Trotksy, played Hampshire’s mother in the 1996 film Dead Innocent.
“She was also from Montreal and got an Oscar nomination for Anne of the Thousand Days,” Hampshire recalls. “And we looked alike. She took me under her wing (in Dead Innocent). I stayed at her place in Malibu. It was the first time I saw the ocean.”
Hampshire really rocks the Diesel jeans and white T-shirt she tries on and has a great time mugging for the camera but she is not Shopping Girl, she claims.
“I used to love it but now I shop in magazines and online. I do not like going into stores. I like not to leave my house.”
When she does, she goes window shopping.
“I love to go to Marni or Marc Jacobs but it is more about wanting than it is about shopping. I get inspired and I can go home and make it. I sew.”
And she loves her bargains.
“I am a discount girl. I shopped the outlet in Vegas before I came here. I am a big fan of Comrags. I wore Comrags to our premiere at the festival. In T.O., I shop Holts because it has a middle ground. There is nothing comparable to Holts in L.A. – Barney’s is too expensive. I shop Toronto Fashion Week to find out about the new Canadian designers. And Anthropologie has the best stuff.”
As for her own personal style: “It’s jeans and tees when I don’t have anything to promote. My look is the homeless look. I wear my husband’s clothes because I don’t want to mess up my own stuff. I’ve accumulated such great stuff. In my daily life, I don’t wear anything new. I barely shower when I’m at home,” she jokes.
“I’ve never had a `job’ job. When I go to the bank, I’m fascinated by the amount of time the staff has spent putting on makeup and blow-drying their hair. If you are not being judged, why bother?
“And I’m the girl who used to not go out of the house without my false lashes.”
Hampshire moved to Toronto after the T.O. premiere of Dead Innocent. Her subsequent credits include It’s a Boy Girl Thing, Snow Cake, Blood and Made in Canada.
“I always knew I wanted to act ever since I saw Les Miz and wanted to be Eponine,” she says. “I had a tiny part in my high school play and my vice-principal said: `You were really funny.’ I liked the attention and I wanted to be good at something.”
She is the only actor in the family. Her father is a dentist.
“I got lucky. I went to an all-girls private school. I hated my mother for making me go but the teachers encouraged me. It was, `You are not going to be doing math.’ They let me sleep through class and they let me stay in the sick room – playing sick, that’s where you can find my best acting. It was a one-woman play every week.”
She is collaborating with Tierney and Baruchel in another film to be shot in Montreal in which she plays a woman obsessed with her two cats. “It is a murder mystery based on the French book Chère voisine adapted in English,” she says. “Her two cats are more important to her than people.”
She would like to have a career like Reese Witherspoon, who can generate her own projects.
“I’d like to have a balance between studio films and little films like Election and to be producing stuff.
“Then again, I’d be thrilled just to make movies with Jacob.”
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