NEW YORK -- Hey, it's Hollywood, things get crazy in the casting. In the new Usher movie In The Mix, Emmanuelle Chriqui plays a Roman Catholic, Italian-American, mob boss's daughter.

The Montreal-born Chriqui, who was raised in Toronto, happens to be a Jewish Canadian of French-Moroccan heritage. Easy with a laugh and bubbling with energy, Chriqui is riding high as she heads toward her 28th birthday on Dec. 10.

"I just liked the script when I read it," Chriqui says of playing Dolly, daughter to Chazz Palminteri's Mafioso Don. "I loved the role of Dolly and I thought I could do this, bring something to it. It just resonated. Then, having Chazz and Usher and (director) Ron Underwood attached, it just seemed like a great thing to do."

In The Mix, which opens in Toronto tomorrow after starting a limited release in the United States last week, is a romantic comedy-drama in which sparks fly between Chriqui and Usher after he is hired by daddy to guard her from rival mobsters. Stuff happens, including a passionate kiss.

In another era in Hollywood, that inter-racial kiss would be scandalous, a controversy for the mainstream and a socio-political act on the part of the filmmakers. Even in this movie, one of Palminteri's henchmen makes insulting remarks about Usher and questions his affection for Chriqui's character.

Chriqui says the film's deft handling of an inter-racial romance is one of the reasons she agreed to do the film.

"Hollywood is just not there yet," she says of her hope that movies will eventually be colour-blind. "We're making steps to it where a love story could exist between a white person and a black person or an Asian person and an Indian person, or whatever they are, and it doesn't matter what they are, it's just two people in love.

"We haven't reached that yet, you know. It's always still a theme. But I'm happy to be a part of something where the ultimate message is that real love, true love, soul love, sees no colour and you've got these two people that are courageous enough to do for it ... It's Romeo and Juliet.

"I think this (In The Mix) is definitely steps in the right direction and I hope it continues more and more and more. I hope that Hollywood will eventually be like, 'It doesn't matter!' Because it's doesn't. It's crazy to me."

As for the racist punk in the movie, "He really comes off as so ignorant," Chriqui says proudly. "The actor (Matt Gerald) is amazing and he did a great job but that attitude is so dated. I have no time for it."

Chriqui, who launched her career in a Canuck burger joint ad when she was 10 and then sequed into Canadian television projects, is seeing an upturn in her fortunes. In addition to In The Mix, she has roles in the films Waltzing Anna and After Sex, and is now shooting American Standard, a psychological thriller inspired by the 1980s film Body Heat.

Plus she returns to Mark Wahlberg's TV creation, Entourage, for new shows in January or February, although details are sketchy.

"I'm back," Chriqui says. "I don't know for how long and I'm not sure what I'm doing. But I'm definitely back. I love -- love! -- working on that show. It's fun."

So life is good, the actor's desperation is gone, she says. "I just feel so blessed and just so happy. I've worked really long and hard so I'm enjoying everything as it's happening."


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