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How Sook-Yin Lee catapulted from MuchMusic VJ to CBC host to silver-screen sensation By Stéphanie Verge
Star bright: Sook-Yin Lee shines in the critically adored, sexually explicit film Shortbus, in theatres October 6
Image credit: Regina Garcia
Sook-Yin Lee has been overdoing it lately. A recent fainting spell in a crowded bar prompted the actor–filmmaker–musician–radio host to slow down—and pick up a book called Healing With Whole Foods. “I need to get a few things. Would you like to come?” she asks, stuffing her keys and wallet into the pockets of her patched jeans. After picking up some apple cider vinegar and lemons—for a detox—at a nearby shop, we head to her narrow laneway house in Kensington Market. Alternating between frenzied and Zen-like, the conversation jumps from the late director John Cassavetes to the art of the interview. She’s as apt to use the words “bummer” and “like” as she is “paradigm” and “cultural discourse.” Lee’s a little like your childhood friend’s much cooler, slightly crazy older sister.
This eccentricity is partly what snagged her the lead in the new U.S. film Shortbus, scheduled to open across North America this month. Lee first worked with the writer and director John Cameron Mitchell in 2001, when she played a supporting part in his cult movie musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. His new film explores sex the way Hedwig explored music: unabashedly. It required the actors to commit non-simulated sexual shenanigans (a gay ménage à trois capped off by an enthusiastic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” say) to celluloid. The film follows members of an artists’ salon called Shortbus, where participants—including Lee’s Sofia, a sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm—explore their carnal urges. When rehearsals started in 2003, her bosses at the CBC, where she hosts Radio One’s Definitely Not the Opera, were none too pleased. Lee feared losing her job even as letters of support poured in from a raft of celebrities, including Moby, Julianne Moore and Yoko Ono. She was allowed to continue with the project; the end result is a bravura performance in a surprisingly sweet and hopeful feature that had a flurry of offers from distributors at Cannes, despite being one of the most sexually explicit movies made this side of porn.
TEST Originally published October 2006
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chiquita October 4, 20061
I don't think Sook-Yin Lee is a very good radio host but I'm tempted to see Shortbus to see what she's like as an actress
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