HAUTE LIVING: Emily Hampshire Found Something Magical In Writing Her First Graphic Novel: Self-Acceptance
March 27, 2023
"EMILY HAMPSHIRE HAS CREATED AN ALTER EGO FOR HERSELF IN HER FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL, AMELIA AIERWOOD, BASIC WITCH. IN THE PROCESS, SHE DISCOVERED SOMETHING TRULY MAGICAL: SELF-ACCEPTANCE.
My favorite film quote of all time is from Adam McKay’s Step Brothers. Dr. Robert Doback has done the responsible thing his entire life. His 40-year-old son, Dale, has done the opposite, living at home like a lazy, entitled leech, but is attempting to adult when his dad imparts the following words of wisdom: “Don’t lose your dinosaur.” What he means is, don’t lose your childlike wonder — it makes you you. I lost mine, and I regret it. This is what is going through my head when I sit down with actor Emily Hampshire at The Beverly Hilton on a late-January afternoon.
Maybe it’s because she’s wearing a whimsical Babar the elephant T-shirt and carrying a matching bag, or that her chopped pixie cut makes her look mischievous; almost elfin. It could be because she talks fast and with excitement. Maybe it is all these things, including the fact that she has just told me that she bought herself an “Olympic-sized” trampoline (currently netless and only safe for bouncing in her backyard) and has always secretly wanted to swim in a pool full of Jell-O. This is a woman who definitely has zero intention of ever losing her dinosaur.
The trampoline is a way to let herself, at 41 (and her inner kid), run amok. As is the Jell-O, though alas, she hasn’t figured out a way of making that happen … yet. But the important thing is that she’s written her Jell-O wish down. Therefore, this desire is out there in the universe. Now it just takes some serious manifestation (and a ton of gelatin) to make her dream come true.
But if she herself can’t go buck wild bouncing around in flavored goo, at least her alter ego, Amelia Aierwood — a basic witch who also happens to be the protagonist of her first graphic novel, releasing April 11 — will be living her best life. “I do feel like my authentic self is very ‘kid-core,’” Hampshire admits. (She invented that word, FYI, and I’m here for it.) “I think that’s especially what I see in Amelia. I wrote that for my younger self, and also my now self, who still wants a Jell-O pool and wants to live in a playhouse. I don’t know that I ever really grew up.”"
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"Let’s recap, shall we? There was Hampshire’s unforgettable, six-season run on Schitt’s Creek, the Canadian series that made her a household name, earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award, and made history by simultaneously winning nine Emmy awards in all major categories. Then there were roles in the 2022 romantic comedy, The End of Sex; Epix’s limited series Chapelwaite based on Stephen King’s short story “Jerusalem’s Lot,” opposite Adrien Brody; Syfy/Hulu’s 12 Monkeys; The Death & Life of John F. Donovan with Natalie Portman and Kit Harington; the indie Never Saw It Coming; and Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!"
