Synopsis

Semisonic's "Secret Smile" presents a playful home-movie scenario built around a young couple filming themselves with a camcorder. Their private, goofy session suddenly becomes a frantic escape when paparazzi show up outside. The couple abandon their playful performance and run, while the band performs against the story's comic, low-tech backdrop. The clip turns the song's theme of an intimate secret shared between two people into a wry visual joke about privacy, celebrity, and the intrusion of an audience.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in Los Angeles in January 1999, around the time "Secret Smile" was being prepared as a single.

• The concept came from Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson, who framed the clip as a deliberately exaggerated home-camcorder session.

• Paul Rudd and Laura Prepon appear as the couple. Rudd was then known for films including "Clueless," while Prepon's best-known television role, Donna Pinciotti on "That '70s Show," was still ahead of her.

• Wilson said the first part of "Secret Smile" came to him in a dream. He woke during the night, wrote down the melody and chords, and returned to the song the next day.

• "Secret Smile" followed "Singing in My Sleep" and preceded "Chemistry" in Semisonic's run of singles from "Feeling Strangely Fine." The song also appeared in "Simply Irresistible" and on episodes of "Charmed" and "Dawson's Creek."