For the last 20 years, Sook-Yin Lee has been one of Canada's most fascinating and multi-faceted creatives. She got her first big break in 1995 when she was cast as a VJ on Much Music, most notably as the longtime host of the network’s cult alternative music show the Wedge. In recent years, she's best known for being the host of CBC Radio's DNTO, acting in critically-acclaimed features like Shortbus, her performance art, starring in and writing plays.
Her longtime collaborator and friend John Cameron Mitchell directed her in Shortbus, but is perhaps best known for writing and starring in the stage production of avant-garde classic, Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 1998, then directing and starring in Hedwig’s feature film in 2001. In recent years, Mitchell is known for directing Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart in the critically-acclaimed Rabbit Hole, or for his role actting on seasons 3 and 4 of Girls as Hannah Horvath’s zany literary agent.
For the latest episode of The Director’s Canvas, we captured John and Sook-Yin talking shop on a porch in Montreal, where they discussed the differences in the arts landscape now vs when they started, the innovative and non-traditional manner in which they scripted and filmed Shortbus, and the multiple forms for creative expression in 2014.