Toronto: Cory Monteith’s ‘All the Wrong Reasons’ Co-Star Says He ‘Was Just Himself, and Lovely’

TORONTO — Canadian actress Emily Hampshire on Wednesday paused to remember Cory Monteith as the Toronto International Film Festival confirmed one of the Glee star’s last films will screen here next month.

“The ones who are true stars and the happiest with where they are at are those with nothing to prove. And Cory was just himself and lovely and great to be with,” Hampshire, who starred opposite Monteith in Gia Milani‘s All the Wrong Reasons, told The Hollywood Reporter.

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The ensemble drama, which also stars Kevin Zegers, features Monteith playing James Asher, a store manager whose wife (Karine Vanasse) is suffering from PTSD. Hampshire plays a store cashier in the indie film about four lives intersecting in a big-box department store.

“[Cory] was so thrilled to be doing this project. It hit home for him,” she added. Monteith worked as a Wal-Mart people greeter in Canada before he became a star.

Monteith, 31, was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room on July 13. An autopsy revealed the actor died of an accidental overdose of heroin and alcohol.

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All The Wrong Reasons also gives Hampshire a chance to show off her dramatic chops after a couple stints doing dark comedies, including the futuristic zombie thriller The Returned and That Burning Feeling, which also stars Tyler Labine and John Cho.

“I might be the only one to consider Cosmopolis a comedy,” Hampshire said of another gig, the David Cronenberg drama in which she rode in a limo alongside Robert Pattinson.

Her rise up the rungs of Canadian film has made Hampshire a mainstay in Toronto, where last year she was on hand to help launch Sean Garrity‘s My Awkward Sexual Adventure.

That comedy had Hampshire playing a good-hearted stripper doling out sex advice to an accountant looking to spice up his love life with a bored girlfriend.

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“It’s so exciting to launch a movie at TIFF, especially a movie that you’re proud of. The audience there is like nothing else,” she said of her Toronto festival experiences.

And Hampshire, who had a cameo role in Xavier Dolan‘s transgender love story Laurence Anyways, will also star in the Quebec director’s first English-language movie, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, now in preproduction.

“It’s an epic story on the celebrity culture. I play an actress who’s the girlfriend of Donovan. It’s a really fraught relationship, and it’s his story,” she explained.

The Toronto International Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 5 to 15.