» PoppyMontgomery.net » Your #1 Poppy Montgomery resource!

» Articles » Canoe: Uh, No Hangups Here (August 19, 1998; by Liz Braun)

Dead Man On Campus should turn these two into stars

Okay, so Poppy Montgomery and Lochlyn Munro are not exactly names that trip lightly off the tongue.

Never heard of them? You will.

Both Montgomery and Munro are up-and-coming actors and both appear in Dead Man On Campus, a black comedy about college that opens here Friday.

As part of the film's ensemble cast, Montgomery and Munro are promoting the movie while simultaneously promoting Planet Hollywood restaurants in North America. It's an ugly job, but somebody's got to do it.

Matched for warmth and enthusiasm, the two sat side-by-side at a table in Toronto's Planet Hollywood recently, looking not unlike poster kids for cute young Hollywood. Munro is a Canadian and a former hockey player. Montgomery is a former Australian. She swears she can no longer even pretend to do an Aussie accent. "My parents are mortified."

In Dead Man On Campus, Tom Everett Scott (That Thing You Do) plays an earnest freshman happily seduced into a life of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll by his rich roommate.

Montgomery plays his girlfriend. Munro plays a psycho named Cliff -- and based on his looks, you could say his performance as a lunatic is like Gary Busey times a million.

The movie has its faults, but casting is not one of them.

A soft-spoken family man and recent convert to Catholicism, Munro is as different from the maniacal Cliff character as he possibly could be.

For the role, he says, "I wanted to lose all my inhibitions, to get to an energy level I've never been to before. So I'd go on set after nine espressos."

A Vancouverite who once played Junior A hockey for Seattle, Munro reckons his career change to acting was based on what he calls a sign from God -- one badly broken leg ended his days on the ice.

He got the message, but, "I couldn't have just had a bad dream?" He now plays on the casual Hollywood hockey team that includes Michael J. Fox, Keanu Reeves, Jason Priestley and Cuba Gooding Jr. Based on the evidence, Munro must be the best player among that lot.

On her side, Montgomery fills in the background of her four-year career -- you may have seen her in TV's Relativity or as the English lesbian on Party Of Five -- and explains that she's from a fairly eccentric family.

Her full name is Poppy Petal Montgomery, and her sisters ("Some are full, some are half,") are named Rosie Thorn, Daisy Yellow, Lily Belle and Marigold Sun.

"And I have one brother named Jethro Tull," she says, noting that he's the oldest and that he's gay, "so he's really one of the girls." She laughs, but adds, with obvious pride, that he's an activist in the gay community in Sydney.

Montgomery wanted to be an actor from childhood. "I knew all my life. I wanted to be one of the singers in The Sound of Music, which I watched about a million times."

She and Munro immediately do a Von Trapp moment and break into a Sound Of Music duet. Attractive, these two.

Upon her arrival in America, Montgomery bought a book about making it in Hollywood, found out who Julia Roberts' agent is, and then pestered the guy until he signed her.

"I always want to tell young actors: Don't listen to people who tell you not to go that route. My naivete helped me."

She has three films upcoming: Life with Eddie Murphy, The Other Sister with Juliette Lewis and Diane Keaton and The Space Between Us with Jeremy Sisto.

Munro comments, "Work begets work." His background includes music (he was the drummer in a grade-school band) and he's one of a family of four kids. He says he started late at acting and, yes, his family was supportive. "But I was successful from the get-go, so that helps," he adds.

Munro appeared in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, and in Needful Things and Wagons East. He's been in a couple of TV movies, and recently finished another feature, A Night At The Roxbury.

When the conversation turns to fame and celebrity, Montgomery confesses she never reads any reviews of her work, good or bad. Munro, on the other hand, grins and admits shyly that he only reads the good reviews.

"So I don't read that much."

[source: canoe.ca]

Ť back