First-time director Rob Stefaniuk turns around and there is his face, four times its regular size, smiling back at him like a backwoods hoser imitating Snagglepuss.
Stefaniuk finds it hard to get used to. "To be honest with you, it's really weird," he says, nodding toward the Phil the Alien poster placed behind him for a round of interviews. "But I love making movies, and I'll put up with or do anything if I get to keep doing it."
Even if it means seeing pictures of himself on every street corner in Toronto, like last autumn when his eek-a-mouse face appeared on the cover of an entertainment weekly. That exposure drummed up a fair amount of early buzz for Phil the Alien, the film that he stars in and directs, just before it was shown at last September's Toronto International Film Festival.
Stefaniuk, who is 33, doesn't mind, because it's much better than the bad publicity he's already familiar with. The kind that came in his early 20s when he had a regular role in the MTV series Catwalk and was profiled in teen magazines like Tiger Beat.
An indie kid at heart, who calls the Queen Street West area home, Stefaniuk says that Catwalk was the lowest of lows.
"At that point in my life, I still took indie very seriously. I was just [appearing in the show]to make money. It was a really upsetting thing to me. I made more money then than I have ever seen in my life. But it was the unhappiest I have ever been."
After having his screenplay The Size of Watermelons made into a film in 1996, Stefaniuk quit acting, save for a few jobs here and there, and played in rock bands around Toronto. He also did some music-video work and helped produce his girlfriend Kris Lefcoe's film Public Domain.
Then, hoping to tap into Telefilm Canada's Low Budget Independent Feature Film Assistance Program,Stefaniuk began fishing around for a film project to make with Black Walk, a Toronto-based production company.
The end result was Phil the Alien, though Stefaniuk says that getting the movie made was a matter of touch and go.
"I didn't think we'd get any Telefilm money. I didn't think we'd get into the film festival. I certainly didn't think we'd get any good reviews -- not because I didn't believe in what we were doing. I just thought that comedies don't get that sort of thing."
As he says this in his characteristic nasal mumble, the distinctions between Stefaniuk and Phil fade. In fact, there's a lot of Phil in Stefaniuk. There's the sense that Phil isn't simply a role that Stefaniuk played, but a persona.
Transplant Phil's adventures in Northern Ontario with assorted outdoorsmen, garage-band musicians and other nobodies to Queen West, and it's a lot like Stefaniuk's own life, at least as he describes it.
In a rural setting, Phil and his friends are a bunch of hosers. But if you put them on Queen West, they'd be the indie crowd, even if the film's slacker jokes may be a little too Kids in the Hall for real-life underground sophisticates.
"I've been underground a long time," he says, laughing. "So I'm not romantic about it. I'm not saying I'm looking to sell out, but I'm not trying to persuade the underground crowd to follow me. I was part of that. I know how fickle and cynical those bastards are."
His next film, which he recently finished writing while promoting Phil the Alien, is a rock-'n'-roll vampire comedy called Suck. He thinks he'll likely star in it, unless a bigger name signs on. He's doubtful, though, since Suck will probably be made with a relatively tiny budget, comparable to the $500,000 it cost to make Phil.
For now, Stefaniuk, staying true to the indie code, is fickle about cashing in on Phil as a character, in the way that, say, Spike Lee did with his Mars Blackmon alter ego, appearing in a succession of Nike ads.
"A lot of people have told me: You should do television. You should try to capitalize on this right now and get some money because some important person saw you, and you should try and follow that up," Stefaniuk says.
But he says he doesn't want to bother if it means taking him away from making films.
"At the same time, I haven't paid my phone bill in months. I've been on tour with the film. I've been bringing in just enough money to survive."
He pauses. The large Phil face is still looming behind him.