Rachelle Lefevre - Dylan Young - Sharp - Sept2008

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Rachelle Lefevre talks about the dangled carrots of Hollywood, the brighter side of threesomes, stepping through the looking glass and a kung fu grip.

For a gallery of images, visit sharpformen.com.

20 Sharp September 2008 SHARPFORMEN.COM

Rachelle Lefevre isn’t goofball, she’s just kiddish. But don’t mistake her childlike quality for doe-eyed innocence. No, definitely not that. What Lefevre has is cheeky bravado, the kind of brassy rapscallion’s independence that comes of growing up in a very particular, very unique way— all by her lonesome. “Do you think Lewis Carroll was an only child?” she asks. “I have to say, the things he came up with, hanging out in your room and entering another world through a mirror, it’s classic only child stuff. I was always going off somewhere, making up games for myself and playing all the characters. To an only child that makes sense, to others it sounds crazy.” Crazy or not, the Montreal native with the oh-so-memorable crimson curls has taken that rarefied imagination and translated it into a slew of multi-textured twists on iconic roles. She’s given us her tomboy, her girl next door, her whip-smart policewoman, her one-night-stand-toremember and her… “… hooker with the heart of gold?” she says with a lusty laugh. You’d be forgiven for thinking this sounds like the stacked layers in a core sample of the male sexual psyche. Lefevre is more than willing to splash around in that type of subtext, something she does with relish on the new CBS show Swingtown. The series takes place in 1976 America, at the historical tipping point between shifting notions of behaviour—moral, social, political, and, above all, sexual. Into this climate of suburban contentment and emotionally secure wife-swappers, her turn as the budding stock trader Melinda serves as the show’s most persistent honey trap. “The great thing about the show is that it doesn’t treat the material in a salacious or melodramatic way. Sure, there are threesomes, drugs and other things that push the envelope but they’re there to tell the story of that period, a time when all of the established values were being re-evaluated. It’s not simple. Some of these characters are continuing the sexual

revolution, actively finding new frontiers, and some of them have happily rejected it, going back to some outmoded Happy Homemaker version of reality. And you know people watching it today will be confronted with those questions as well.” Swingtown isn’t the only thing she’s been up to. She shot a pilot for the US version of the celebrated UK series Life on Mars, but ultimately lost her part along with the rest of the cast when showrunner David E. Kelly left the project. Her association with Kelly, however, resulted in a multi-episode run on Boston Legal, as the previously mentioned golden-hearted call girl. September 12th, she hits the small screen again in the Canadian-made miniseries The Summit, a bio-terror intrigue in which she plays the intrepid daughter to Bruce Greenwood’s Prime Minister. “Generally speaking, people expect Bruce to be stoic because there’s so much stoicism in his portrayals. But when you meet him, you realize he’s actually a bit of a clown. He does amazing impersonations. He really likes to laugh. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a great actor either.” More recently, she finished shooting the Catherine Hardwicke-directed screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, an angsty modern-day vampire saga with only a slightly less rabid fanbase than Harry Potter’s. The Internet and trades are already lit up with speculations about the likely “hugeiosity” of the franchise and the impact it will have on those involved. Lefevre, who plays Victoria, one of the series’ central characters, is already being hailed by many (us included) as the next Hollywood “it girl.” But the it girl herself isn’t buying it. “It’s not the first time I’ve had voices around me going, “This could be really big. You could be very big.” People have the tendency to do that. I try to ignore that now. But it does get in your head. On my worst days of having no power to control my fantasy life, I can’t help wonder if – maybe, you know – I’ll get to be an action figure.” DYLAN YOUNG PHOTO BY JIMMY HAMELIN

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