Lauren Lee Smith (1/10 Night for Dying Tigers)
Excerpt from The Examiner 1/15/10: Lauren Lee Smith (Picture on Anios Corporation) | A Night for Dying Tigers
Jennifer Beals plays blind in 'The Book of Eli' and looks back on 'The L Word'
What’s next for you?
I’m working right now on a film called “A Night for Dying Tigers.” It’s about a uniquely dysfunctional family. I play a sister-in-law, with part of the insanity but without the inherited traits. It’s hard to talk about because we just started … Lauren Lee Smith is in it, who was on “The L Word,” and she actually did a film called “Lie With Me.”
© The Examiner
Excerpt from A Night for Dying Tigers 2/17/10: Lauren Lee Smith
THE EDIT
I think A NIGHT FOR DYING TIGERS has a pretty great cast: Jennifer Beals, Gil Bellows, John Pyper Ferguson, Leah Gibson, Kathleen Robertson, Tygh Runyan, Lauren Lee Smith, Sarah Lind, Jessica Heafey, and more!
© A Night for Dying Tigers
Excerpt from National Post 8/10/10: Lauren Lee Smith
TIFF 2010: Canadian films announced
Brad Frenette August 10, 2010 - 1:55 pm
This afternoon at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel, the Toronto International Film Festival announced its 2010 Can-con, featuring films by celebrated Canucks including Bruce McDonald, Xavier Dolan, Denis Villeneuve and Jacob Tierney.
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A Night for Dying Tigers Terry Miles, Canada World Premiere
The night before Jack goes to prison for five years, his family gets together at their ancestral home for a farewell dinner. What begins as a civil, if not joyful, reunion quickly devolves into a morally questionable whirlwind of regret, reversals, and revelations. The film stars Jennifer Beals, Gil Bellows, Kathleen Roberston, Lauren Lee Smith, Tygh Runyon and John Pyper-Ferguson.
© National Post
Now Toronto 9/10: Lauren Lee Smith
A Night for Dying Tigers
(Norm Wilner)
Canada 94 minutes
Directed by Terry Miles
Program: Contemporary World Cinema
Starring Gil Bellows, Jennifer Beals
NOW Rating: NN
There's enough shouting, sex and repressed childhood trauma for five Fringe shows in Miles's drama, wherein a quartet of dysfunctional siblings (and assorted wives and mistresses) hurl their secrets at one another the night before the eldest brother (Bellows) leaves to serve a five-year prison sentence. The actors throw themselves fully into their parts - Beals brings formidable backbone to Bellows's betrayed but still supportive wife, and Lie With Me's Lauren Lee Smith rips into the role of the fuck-up adopted sister. But Miles's script doesn't offer a single surprise, running his self-absorbed characters through each new tearful confession or furious confrontation as though they were checkers on a board.
SHOW TIMES
Saturday 11, September 2010 11:45 AM AMC 2 10 Dundas Street East, at Yonge 416-335-5323
Friday 17, September 2010 3:30 PM AMC 6 10 Dundas Street East, at Yonge 416-335-5323
Friday 10, September 2010 8:45 PM AMC 3 10 Dundas Street East, at Yonge 416-335-5323
National Post 9/10/10: Lauren Lee Smith
‘I look for roles where I get to scream a lot’: A Night for Dying Tigers’ Lauren Lee Smith blows off steam at work
Ben Kaplan September 10, 2010 - 9:00 am
The week before her second appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival, actress Lauren Lee Smith and her husband packed up all their belongings and moved to Toronto from their home in Los Angeles. “He’s back at the place right now, unpacking boxes,” says Smith, 30, over a coffee in Yorkville the day before her film A Night for Dying Tigers makes its world premiere. “In Los Angeles, it’s hard right now to find good projects that aren’t all about CGI or 3-D, and so we’re excited to make Toronto our home.”
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That daringness is once again on display in A Night for Dying Tigers, an ensemble drama set over the course of a single evening the night before Jack, the family patriarch played by Gil Bellows, heads off to prison for five years. “It’s a simplistic story, but with such complex characters that it almost feels like a French film,” says Smith, who plays Karen, Jack’s emotionally unwound sister who’s equal parts charming, violent and nuts. According to Smith, the role perfectly adheres to her career trajectory. “I feel like every few years I have to let out my crazy,” she says, laughing heartily. “I look for roles where I get to scream, yell and cry a lot because I’m actually pretty easy going in ordinary life.”
In 2008, Smith had a reoccurring role on CSI and says the difference between shooting an independent film and a network TV series is huge. “On television, you have at least five people to do every job,” she says. “One thing I love about this movie is all of us helped move the lights.”
The experience Smith had at the 2005 film festival not only paved her way as an actress, but also toughened her up for dealing with press. She says she’s looking forward to talking about A Night for Dying Tigers after having to explain herself endlessly on Lie with Me. “It’s good that this film isn’t so controversial that every other question I get is, ‘Why would you ever do a film like this?’ ” she says. “I’m incredibly proud of this movie, and I also like that I don’t have as much to explain.”
• A Night for Dying Tigers premieres tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, screening at AMC 3 at 8:45 p.m. It also screens Sept. 11 and Sept. 17; see tiff.net for details.
© National Post
Excerpt from Movie City News 9/18/10: Lauren Lee Smith
TIFF Review: A Night for Dying Tigers
By Kim Voynar Posted Saturday, September 18th, 2010
Russell (John Pyper-Ferguson) is a Booker Prize-winning novelist, Patrick (Tygh Runyan) a successful director of horror films who’s just been greenlit for a more serious literary adaptation, and Jack (Gil Bellows), the stalwart oldest brother around whom the family is gathering at the family homestead, is about to go off to prison for five years. Fragile sister Karen (Lauren Lee Smith) has been charged with organizing the festivities.
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Of all the films I saw at Toronto, I’d have to say this film surprised me the most; I went into it with very little in the way of expectations, and came out of it quite impressed by the direction and performances. Beal and Smith are particularly noteworthy, but all the cast is solid.
© Movie City News
Calgary International Film Festival 9/20/10: Lauren Lee Smith
Mavericks, Narratives, Documentaries and Shorts of all shapes and sizes...
More than 200 of the finest films in contemporary cinema await their debut in this, the 11th year of the Calgary International Film Festival, running September 24 to October 3, 2010. Prepare to witness how the “West Meets the World” as we highlight the best in local, national and global filmmaking at Calgary’s ‘other’ 10-day cultural event.
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A Night for Dying Tigers
© Calgary International Film Festival
Excerpt from The Cultural Post 9/29/10: Lauren Lee Smith
Line-Up of Canadian Films at the Festival du nouveau cinéma
Wednesday, 29 September, 2010
Yesterday, Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC), which will take place from October 13 to 24, revealed its full line-up of films. Nineteen Canadian feature films and documentaries will be presented
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A Night for Dying Tigers
Director: Terry Miles
Starring: Jennifer Beals, Gil Bellows, Lauren Lee Smith, Tygh Runyan, Kathleen Robertson, John Pyper-Ferguson, Leah Gibson, Sarah Lind and Jessica Heafey
© The Cultural Post
Excerpt from The Province 9/30/10: Lauren Lee Smith
Indie movie looks like a million bucks: Carl Bessai pulled together a pool of strong talent and worked with little money to great effect
By Glen Schaefer, The Province September 30, 2010
Five more Canadian films to watch for:
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- A Night For Dying Tigers is writer director Terry Miles's third feature. For a story about a dysfunctional family of artists, Vancouver's latest rising talent marshals a cast that includes Gil Bellows, Jennifer Beals, John Pyper-Ferguson, Lauren Lee Smith and Tygh Runyan.
© The Province
Excerpt from The Province 2/14/11: Lauren Lee Smith
Easy listening to star of the Listener
By Glen Schaefer, The Province February 14, 2011
It’s hard to pin actor Lauren Lee Smith down, either geographically or thematically.
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“For me it’s all about balance,” says Smith. “I did this film last year called Hindenburg, a period piece, a big epic. Then I came to Vancouver and did the lowest budget film I’ve ever done in my life.”
That was director Terry Miles’ twisted family drama A Night for Dying Tigers, also starring fellow Vancouverites Gil Bellows, Tygh Runyan and Jennifer Beals, which played festivals last fall.
© The Province
Excerpt from The Huddersfield Daily Examiner 3/19/11: Lauren Lee Smith
Bradford International Film Festival Day 3: A Night for Dying Tigers - Review
By David Bailey on Mar 19, 11 11:46 AM
Last night I ventured back to Bradford, alone this time, to see A Night For Dying Tigers, the new feature by director/producer/writer/cinematographer/editor Terry Miles.
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This is one of those films where the characters mention things that have happened, but don't explain exactly what's going on, then, ten minutes later, perhaps we're fed another little spoonful of information. What this does to great effect in Dying Tigers is mess with your perceptions of characters. Jack (Gil Bellows), for example, starts off as an adulterous criminal, but by the end of the film he is one of the more sympathetic characters. Patrick (Tygh Runyan) and Karen (Lauren Lee Smith) begin as the free-spirited sympathetic ones, but quickly take two very different paths to being unlikeable narcissists.
© The Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Excerpt from Diva Mag 4/11/11: Lauren Lee Smith
Rachel Shelley interviews The L Word's Jennifer Beals
Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:23:37 GMT
She starred in the indie movie A Night For Dying Tigers, capturing one evening in the life of a highly dysfunctional family. It also stars Lauren Lee Smith (TLW's Lara Perkins), of whom Beals says, 'She's a frigging genius. Watching her blew my mind, it was so subtle. She brought so much more to the part, she was tremendous and gorgeous, to top it off.'
© Diva Mag