by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

The pride of Hampstead has a theory about Montrealers in Hollywood: "They really do well. I don't know what it is, but Montrealers aren't really intimidated by all that bullshit. We have a better perspective here. We work to live."

David Julian Hirsh, 32, is the St. George's grad turned acting star of the locally shot Naked Josh and he isn't the only success story. He recently produced a movie called Camp Hollywood that shows the real-life efforts of fame-hungry Canucks who have moved to L.A. "There are a lot of Montrealers in it," he promises of the movie that airs on Bravo early this year.

Hirsh's main chapeau these days is TV star, something he's pursued since abandoning the study of criminology at the University of Toronto. "I was going to be a defence attorney, but I was handing in essays three months late. So I moved to New York to pursue acting."

Turning thespian wasn't just a phase for Hirsh, who paid for his acting classes as a personal bartender to Calvin Klein. "It was kinda like a full-time under-the-table job. It was great fun to work in this high-fashion world while doing off-Broadway theatre."

This eventually led to Naked Josh, which Oprah's Oxygen Network and Showcase broadcast, as does Radio-Canada in translated form. "It's weird - I just saw it and I sound like I'm from France."

Hirsh lives in a hotel near Sherbrooke and Peel during the two-and-a-half months of shooting in Montreal, where he traipses around relatively unnoticed. But the city has had more trouble retaining its anonymity. "At one point Oxygen didn't want us to show Montreal as Montreal, but the setting is what makes the show special. We're so unique, we have so much style. So there are snow shots and there's a lot more smoking on the show."

Unlike in real life, where the Mirror fawns over his endless accomplishments, Hirsh's TV character gets embarrassed by the paper in the first show of the second season. "It's featured in a very funny way making fun of me," he says.

Many Naked Josh scenes are shot at the Motel Bar on Rachel, which has become one of his haunts. To further assist lovelorn stalkers, he's said to not have a long-established girlfriend, although he wistfully announces having recently "just met somebody special."

Hirsh also has no shortage of world-conquering endeavours. "I just pitched a show called Fuck Me: I'm Famous, sort of like Entourage with Mark Wahlberg, although the difference is that in Canada if you're famous, it doesn't change anything because you're still poor."

Then there's an upcoming big role in a "really amazing miniseries, something wonderfully huge." Plus Hirsh has optioned William Weintraub's City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s, which deals with such characters as the infamous striptease artiste Lily St-Cyr. "There's a good chance it'll happen. We need a hot leading lady. I think it'd make the perfect Canadian story."

If Hirsh has his druthers, he'll shoot another five seasons of Naked Josh and buy a shack here. "My dream is to have a place here in Montreal and a place in New York and L.A. But I can't stand Toronto."