: Lunch
with Bif :
David Spaner
The
Vancouver Province
Bif Naked is having lunch
with me but herind is on Lunch with Charles.
That's the romantic road
picture opening tommrow that the sinfer co-stars in, and this day shes
sitting in the Alibi RToom restaurant, slowly stirring a soy latte', cotemplating
the overwhelming saddnes she felt that day her role rapped.
"I cried like a baby," she
says."I didnt want to leave. It was a really wonderful expereience for
me. It was like falling in love."
THe moment she read Vancouver
director-screenwriter Micheal Parkers script in 1999, she wanted to play
Natasham a young woman strugglining to find her voice, personally and as
a vocalist.
"Natasha is just so open.
I just really wanted the opportunit to pretend to be that open everyday.
I was rivited by the script. I thought it was the biggest challange because
her character is alot different than i am."
Bif Naked, movie actress,
also seems a lot different that Bif Naked, rock diva.
In some ways, the flamboyant
rocker Bif Naked --- "gruff, sexual, devious, confident, self assured"
she says -- would likely be the Brady Bunch's worst nightmare. In other
ways, shes a member of the Brady family.
First off, Naked doesnt
smoke. Doesnt do drugs or drink alcohol, either. She buys Starbucks CDs
for friends(I really like thier CDs), has small dogs ("People think i have
big dogs and i really have a little maltese and a littl Bichon"), and to
top it all off shes looking for a home in the staid proproety of Kerrisdale.
But before you get too comfortable
with Bif Naked remember that her first priority is rocking against the
mainstream, speaking out on social issues (she performed at Rock for Choice)
and even her move to Kerrisdale has ultereior motives -- "If I'm the only
most frieghtning thing on my block, i know im safe."
Bif Naked was born in New
Delhi in 1970 and adopted by United Church missionaries.
Her parents moved from India
to Narthern Manitobas The Pas("home of the trappers' festival," she says)
to Lexington Ky, to Dauphin Man.(canadas national Ukranian capital.")
Juast as she was about to
starthighschool, her professor-of-dentisstry dad got a job at the University
of manitoba in Winnipeg.
"When my father announced
we were moving to Winnipeg I was overjoyed. There was nothing but trouble
in Dauphin. Junior High;s often cruel. I was bullied a lot by the older
girls."
In "more cosmopolitan" Winnipeg,
the reble girl went to heavy metal and reggae gigs, has a Jamacian boyfriend,
hung out in a largely jewish milieu.
"I seemed to fit in there,
I just found that I seemed to blend, "she says, adding that after becoming
a punk rocker she considered changing her name from Beth Hopkins to Beth
Isreal and, to this day, her speech is laced with Yidish expressions.
"I'm no Shiksa," she says,
still stirring her soy latte'. "That means I'm not one of those uptight
West Coast blond white girls. They cant relax. They panic about thier boyfriends,
they panic about what they eat."
Pre-punk Naked has other
artistic interests -- baller, piano and acting. She performed theater and
improv and enrolled in the University of Winniped theater department.
"I didnt want to be Lana
Turner, I wanted to be Eddie Murphy. He was the funniest man in the universe
and he has a great jo. It never occured to me that i could be in a rock
band."
"While at university she
met musicians and soon was lead singer of the punk band Gorilla Gorilla.
In 1990, they decided to
relocate to Vancouver.
Naked quickly established
herself, forming her own lable and releasing a solo CD, touring and eventually
quitting her say job in the print shop at the Greater Vancouver Real Estate
board.
"I wasn't doing any acting
because i was concentrating on being in bands." she says. But in 1995 she
returned to acting after being contacted by movie director and Bif Naked
dan John Fawcett.
She was offered a four line
role as a liquor store manager in Fawcetts The Boys Club. John Wu's
Once a Thief followed, then roles in Big sound and The
Chris Isaak show.
Naked gives a strong performance
in her first starring rols in Lunch with Charles, which costars
Vancouvers Nick Lea and Hong Kong actors Sean Lau and Theresa Lee.
Director Micheal Parker
is effusive about Naked's performance.
"I think she was fantastic,
I really do," he says. "She loves acting and she's so incredible on the
set. She shows up and wht whole sets alive -- friendly to everyone, a huge
smile, a great respect for the crew and myself."
Naked could barely belive
it was a rela job.
"I cant belive people get
paid for playing dressup everyday. Its so much fun."
Now she's considering other
offers, particularly a sci-fi script.
"I dont know what my life
work really is," she says. "However in the meantime i want to make records."
She's been married once,
engaged 4 times. Now her personal life is taking a backseat to working
on the follow-up record to her 1998 CD I Bificus.
"It's all-consuming. My
personal life's been on hold six months. But i love love. I will always
dall in love. I will always be a hopless romantic,' she says still stirring
her soy latte'.
"And i still want to stirr
thr pot. If it's fun and funny I'm going to be drawn to it.