Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire on getting hives in auditions, her new role in Chapelwaite and avoiding romance
- Hampshire, who stars with Adrien Brody in the new horror series, left home at 16 to look for fame and fortune in Toronto
- After playing ‘cute girlfriends’ she moved on to character roles, which led to her breakthrough in Schitt’s Creek
Suffering through countless auditions is bad enough, but actress Emily Hampshire is actually allergic to them.
“I started breaking out in full body hives when I went to audition,” she says. A Canadian actress now with scores of shows under her belt, Hampshire was trying for the big time in Los Angeles.
“That caused a lot of anxiety when I broke out in hives,” she recalls. “So I told my American agent that I can’t audition any more. I can put myself on tape, but I can’t go into the room. And she dropped me – which was totally fair.
“My Canadian agent, who I’ve been with since I started, didn’t. And then the audition for Schitt’s Creek came along and she’s like, ‘Go in the room. They’re Canadians. They’re nice.’ And I went in there and that changed a lot of things.”
Hampshire’s role as the deadpan front-desk clerk in the hit comedy series proved to be a seismic shift. Hollywood producers began to take notice and she was no longer just another hopeful vying with 100 others for a small role.