Montreal’s Rachelle Lefevre has let the bull out of the gate. Her life is about to change dramatically and unequivocally thanks to a vampire phenom known as The Twilight Saga.
She looms large as Victoria the vengeful vampire in New Moon and Eclipse. And although she only appeared in the first installment, Twilight, very briefly, she says it has impacted her life in ways she never imagined.
“I think things might get heavier now because my role is bigger in the second and third films,” she says over the phone from Los Angeles. “Certain things are wonderful. I get to read for films I wouldn’t have gotten to read more, I’m traveling more and doing more press and I get that.
“The difficult part is being photographed walking down the street. I was just in what I thought was a private moment with my boyfriend (Jamie Thomas King) at a restaurant and we thought we were alone in the world on patio. When we left, the paparazzi chased us down the street. We realized they had taken photos of us throughout our meal. It was creepy.”
Lefevre understands she chose to work in a job that puts her out there, but adds the attention can be frightening.
“I feel like there are two sides to fame,” she says. “It’s like a seesaw. Sometimes I would absolutely not leave the house without hair and makeup and cute jeans. The other day with my boyfriend, I just couldn’t be bothered to care. I was jetlagged, a mess, no makeup.
“I can’t be a slave. I don’t mean this to diminish terrorism, but it is a bit like it. They function like terrorists.”
Speaking of terror, Lefevre stars in the TV mini-series The Summit, a doomsday thriller airing this Sunday on CBC, set during a G8 meeting in Canada. She plays a documentary filmmaker exposing abuses in the Colombian rose trade, and who also happens to be the Prime Minster’s daughter. Her character falls victim to a man-made plague being tested on rose workers.
Lefevre says she understands why audiences enjoy scary, apocalyptic scenarios.
“We’re all naturally afraid of what we don’t understand and there is so much we’re afraid of. If you make something epic, it almost seems far-fetched.
“These huge disaster movies about biological warfare that wipes out humanity in three days seem so far fetched. It’s reassuringly epic. It calms our fears. We’re so much better off. We can look around and go, ‘All is normal.’”
Lefevre says The Summit inspired her to think globally.
“I love documentary films,” she says. “We shot in Ecuador and I did a lot of research on the roses industry. The same human atrocities are also in the chocolate industry in Africa. I got passionate and met coffee workers and chocolate sellers.
“Chocolate, coffee and roses are so integrated into our everyday lives. Try to go a day without chocolate if you’re a woman! Try not to go to Starbucks. We consume these things in mass quantities.”
– Part one of The Summit airs Sunday night on CBC. The mini-series concludes next Sunday night
