This is an older Interview, from '98.
Canadian 'strikes' it up
By NATASHA STOYNOFF -- Toronto Sun
"I'm sleeping in paint fumes," he groggily explains his woozy state over the phone.
"I'm painting, but I'm so not Tim Allen," he laughs, "I'm no Home Improvement. This is a bad sitcom here."
In Strike, (opening Friday), the story of a 1963 all-girls' school going co-ed, Smith is more in his element.
He plays one leather-jacketed rebel in a rat pack of guys called The Flat Critters, whose "main activity is taking pictures of roadkill," he says.
Co-starring Lynn Redgrave, Kirsten Dunst and Gabby Hoffman, the film offers a look at pre-Fab Four fashions, including Smith's Davy Crockett ode to his favorite actor, Nicolas Cage.
"I wear this big, goofy fur hat inspired by Cage in Trapped In Paradise," he says.
An actor for six years, the 23-year-old Pickering native just officially moved to Toronto last week after a Green Card-less year in L.A.
"You're an American citizen?" he asks when I tell him of my hot little U.S. passport. "Will you marry me?"
Alien or not, Smith's Hollywood 'n' Vine experience was "the best time in my life," he insists.
Especially since he got to chum with his pre-Oscar, post-Golden Globe idol Cage one night in a smoky bar called Jones'.
"He was sitting alone in a booth and Bowie came on over radio and I was singing along," chuckles Smith, "like a loser, smoking a cigar, trying to be cool. And he said: Oh, you like Bowie? Have a seat!"
After offering Cage one of his "really cheap" smokes, Cage gave him sage acting advice.
"He said: 'If you beleive in it, hang in there, you'll make it.' It was the greatest night of my life."
Back on Canadian soil, the multi-talented Smith is also lead singer/guitarist/pianist/songwriter for his band, Hank (an ode to Larry Sanders' dopey sidekick), inspired by poppy, peppy, Beach Boys-Beatles-Bowie tunes.
"There's just too much angst going on in music now," he says, of the band's light-hearted repertoire.
But, being the struggling artist-as-a-young-man that he is, Smith can do angst, if required.
"I don't think such a thing as true love exists," explains the recently-single guy when nudged to explore his darker side. "I can't see myself ever getting married." (So, is he recanting his proposal?)
Maybe that's 'cuz chicks keep recognizing him for his nerdy turn in The Big Hit, where he played a video store clerk who mercilessly harasses (Marky) Mark Wahlberg.
"Video clerks always say to me, 'Oh my God, we love what you did. We wish we could do that!' " YO, DANNY BOY!: Good thing my phone call woke up Danny Smith, who might have never regained consciousness in that newly renovated Annex apartment of his.
