My brain works in webs; never up and down, right to left, front to back. Little words, little feelings, little memories swirl around, matted together and making friends, gossiping and creating stories that may or may not be true. Does it matter? That’s how I’ll remember it.

It’s strange what you see in people and what they see in you. He saw things in me that were never there to begin with. I saw things in him that he didn’t want to see in himself.

Playing false is fun but it’s exhausting. Eventually you’re gasping for reality, for the truth, for who you really are. You’re sick of costumes and rehearsed lines, timed looks, the audience’s laughter. We did everything for an audience, usually of just each other.

My hand's in his.

"Can we go home?”

We play hide and seek. I see him, then I don’t. Sometimes, he stands before me, outlined and crisp. Then he’s gone, evaporated. With darkness and light, he's hidden behind things I can't break through.

“Where’d you go?”

I don’t ask him because I don’t know how. He's lonely. I can hear it in his walk. I move too swiftly, but with some grace. I keep looking through my kerosene eyes. I blink then cause fires.

He won’t be found.

Emily Hampshire BlogTO Article Excerpt

There is no one in the world like Emily Hampshire. Strikingly beautiful and with a personality full of quirks and interesting insights, I have never met another person like her.

She is also, hands down, my favourite Canadian actress. Her work is as special as she is. She comes across as genuine, affecting, and remarkably unique, on and off screen. I've always looked up to her. I was thrilled when she and I worked together a little over a year ago on a movie called Die, being released in Canada in the New Year.

I find she and Jacob Tierney (her best friend and the director of Good Neighbours, the film Emily stars in that's premiering at TIFF) very inspirational. They are two talented Canadian actors who have banded together, with an incredible loyalty, creating fantastic work. Watching them together at award shows, and parties, as well as their Facebook banter, is equal parts funny and touching. They are hilarious and witty, and they make me wish I had my own creative soul mate.

Driving Lessons - Personal Essay Excerpt

Before my flight date, I had to figure out a way to get around Los Angeles. I ended up taking several taxis a day, which in Los Angeles is viewed as being as ridiculous as walking on your hands.

“Why don’t you get a car?” everyone I knew would ask.

“Well, I’m still learning how to drive.”

They looked at me like I was an alien. I began to believe that I would have been less of a social outcast if I’d told them I couldn’t drive because I had a D.U.I. Whenever I got into a cab, some dark-haired driver I didn’t recognize would say, “Oh, you’re Katie.” Under normal circumstances, I’d be frightened a random man knew my name. But I had taken so many taxis that eventually, all the drivers at The Beverly Hills Cab Company knew me. I was infamous, “Katie, the Canadian girl who couldn’t drive.”

My road trips with taxi drivers, usually Armenian men, were not unlike normal ones. We’d listen to music, we’d laugh, we’d even fight when they’d get hopelessly lost and blame me for not knowing where I was going. The conversations I had with those men, whose last names always ended in “ian”, were amongst the most interesting of my life. We discussed philosophy, religion, life, death and above all, love.

I think they could tell I was struggling.

“You have to make a man work for it, Katie,” my favourite taxi driver, Aaron told me.

“How do you mean?”

“Show them how lucky they are.”

He had a point.

Toronto Star Article Excerpt

Yorkville’s streets become hallways of your past. For the Canadian film industry, it really is old home week. The parties vary, most of them are very fun but they become a blur.

It's rare to not see a movie you're in before its debut, but that's how it worked out with Daydream Nation. I was excited and nervous that I was going to see the film for the first time with an audience. I like doing interviews but I feel strange getting my picture taken and when walking the red carpet I never know what to do. “You’re too posed!” one man yells. “Pose harder!” another tells me. I stare ‘sexily’ at one and smile crazily at another.

My brother, Michael, was my date. When the lights dimmed and the movie started, he took my hand. "Relax. It's going to be great."

And it was.

Watching myself on screen is always a removed experience. I feel like I’m looking at someone else who I only vaguely recognize. In this movie, I was someone I vaguely recognized with horrible hair. I felt proud and touched when people in the audience laughed at my very well written scenes with Kat Dennings.

At the after party, Kat and I find each other in a sea of people and run off the bathroom. We sit on the floor in front of a huge mirror, lit only by dim candle light and apply her make-up.

“What’d you think?” I ask her.

“I really like it,” she told me.

She should. This is her movie and she’s phenomenal in it. After we freshen our lipstick, we walk upstairs and separate, lost in enjoying the night.

The Canadian film industry is really hard, and to have ten days where it’s appreciated, where people get the attention they deserve, is as joyful as it is moving. This year, we all feel like celebrating.

Crazy - Personal Essay Excerpt

The thing is, if you knew me, you wouldn’t think I’m afraid to feel. In fact, reading this book I’m sure you don’t think I’m afraid to feel. If anything, you probably think I feel too much. But that’s not actually true. I think too much. I push too much. I force reactions that I think are the right ones because I don’t want to feel how I actually do. In fact, most times I’m so far removed from my real feelings that I’m not sure what I do feel. I talk about how I’m doing honestly to maybe four people, and each time, it’s peppered with trying to present it in the best possible way.

I have long felt there is something permanently singular about me, that there are parts of me that I can’t share with anyone. In my fantasies, I meet someone and they understand me perfectly, knowingly without me having to explain anything to them. In fact, my personal definition of love has forever been having a person understand a part of you that will always be unspoken.

Is that because I don’t want to be honest with anyone?

Once I start thinking about it, it makes perfect sense that I’m so afraid of crazy. If you hate feeling you’re going to be uncomfortable around the feelings of almost everyone else. Simultaneously, to avoid talking about yourself, you are going to make it very easy for people to tell you every little dirty secret they have. I’ve forced myself into the emotional wildness of other people while running scared.

But where has this come from, I think. When did I become afraid to feel and why? Who’s fault is it? Is it that I feel things too deeply, so deeply that I have to avoid it altogether? Is it that I think it’s possible to feel only good all the time? Or am I just insane?

I wonder then if a part of me has always known that I’m afraid to feel. Maybe that’s why I’m an actress and a writer. I want to feel honestly with such a desperation that I’ve made it my life’s work.

Where do I go from here?