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Lee Smith attracted to truth in sex
By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun



Lauren Lee Smith

In her film debut, Lie With Me, Vancouver actress Lauren Lee Smith strips naked, and engages in the depiction of explicit sex acts.

In one scene of Toronto sex drama, the 25-year-old Smith grabs Eric Balfour's erect penis, and in another scene, his face disappears between her thighs.

"Let's talk about sex," Smith, 25, says in a recent interview during the Toronto film festival, where the no-holds-barred film made its premiere. "I had never had any desire to do a film where I take my clothes off and do explicit sex scenes," she tells the Sun. "In fact, I thought that that would never happen. There was no chance in hell."

Indeed, when her agent suggested the five-year TV veteran audition for the female lead, Smith thought her "insane." Then Smith read the Lie With Me script, co-written by Clement Virgo and Tamara Berger and based on Berger's novella. Smith had read and admired the book a year earlier, pleased with its raw, frank exploration of lust and love.

"Once I read the script, it rang so truthful for me and, after speaking to Clement and Tamara and Eric and Damon (D'Oliveira, the producer), I heard their vision for the film and how they did want to make it very truthful and not just be your typical Hollywood love scene.

"So it was the opportunity to tell this beautiful story in a really truthful way, you know. Hopefully, people accept it. But I'm sure, for some people, it's not their cup of tea ..."


Smith is astounded that audiences, and censors, are comfortable with movie violence but not with sex. "It's a very odd thing to me that violence is completely okay, and children go see Sin City, but you get a film like Lie With Me or Y Tu Mama Tambien and people freak out."

Some do freak when she grabs Balfour's penis in a medium-close shot that leaves nothing to the imagination. That scene is part of "the nitty gritty" of acting in this film, Smith says.

"It's exhilarating. It's as scary as hell. It's very odd. It's very bizarre. Clement and Eric and I had several rehearsals and meetings where we sat down and came to the conclusion that we were going to dive into this and make it truthful and we were not going to lie -- within the boundaries that we had set up between the three of us."

She will not divulge those rules. "I can't because we made a pact. But the three of us figured out what we were comfortable with and then it was just the three of us going for it.

"Clement was very specific with the blocking (the choreography of each scene) but, after that, we were pretty free to go for it. And go for it we did!"

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