E-Mail This Article to a Friend Truth squad Bacon, Egoyan, and Firth sell lies BY GERALD PEARY

Oh, the vanity of journalists in believing that in the course of a celebrity interview they can break through to some hidden truth. This year at Toronto, I saw Kevin Bacon pounce on a TV reporter who’d asked how he’d discovered the dark side to his character in Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies. "Come on, we all have dark sides!" he barked. He pointed at her, a stereotypical sunshine blonde: "I bet even you have a dark side!"

At the Cannes press conference last May for Where the Truth Lies, Bacon warned us that trying to uncover his inner self would be a waste of time. He let us in on a secret: "For press conferences, interviews, the idea is to give the impression that you’re seeing the real me, my real soul, without really doing that. It’s a kind of acting exercise." Colin Firth agreed. "An actor’s life is as much about concealment as revealing oneself. It’s not just a kind of random exhibitionism. We actors are fiercely protective of certain parts of our lives, which is a kind of sanity."

Having planed these thoughts, Bacon and Firth said what they wanted to say about the garish, explosive 1950s comedy team they play. In Rupert Holmes’s vastly entertaining roman-à-clef, on which the film is based, the comedians are drawn more or less from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. In the Egoyan film, the characters of straight man Vince Collins (Firth) and stooge Lanny Morris (Bacon) are more fluid and elusive. Bacon: "Atom said to go develop your own comedy act. It can be anything you want it to be. I was afraid of that, not being a comedian, not being a writer, I wanted to see it on the page. How could you have, with Colin, this buttoned-down British guy and me, this ugly American? I looked at Martin and Lewis, but also the Smothers Brothers, Rowan and Martin. The ‘age of couples comedy’ really fascinated me. Atom turned me on to Louis Prima, a good template."

Firth added Sinatra’s Rat Pack to the mix. "The Rat Pack were not necessarily that funny, nor singing at its best, which was a great relief for us. Atom tailored what we did to our strengths, what actors could go after, a rapport and intimacy on stage. We found an act — I can’t think of an act like this. It’s a little startling, when you see my actions off stage, a perfect British gentleman who beats the crap out of people."

Yes, there’s violence, and also, the cause of a disputed NC-17 rating, raw sex. Bacon: "Sex is oftentimes all right to see if there’s a piece of furniture in front of the nudity. When we have sex here, we’re nude, which flips people out. But the way it’s done is very specific to the storytelling, incredibly appropriate."

Egoyan, joking: "Most of the sex is in master shot, no coverage, much to Robert’s chagrin."

Producer Robert Lantos: "It’s a film for adults, always intended for adults."

Egoyan: "I always saw this as a sensual movie. I wanted to create a world that’s intoxicating. Nothing is holding these people back. They could take all the drugs they wanted, have all the sex. I wanted to make that sex as vivid, as corporeal as possible. It’s interesting how people think the sex goes too far, but when you see the mashing, that’s the most violent scene I’ve ever done."