J. Smith-Cameron is giving Emmy voters several reasons to consider her this season.
Back in 2024, when Variety spoke with Smith-Cameron, the actor had made a cameo on HBO’s “Hacks” as Deborah Vance’s (Jean Smart) younger sister, Kathy. “It feels to me like there’s more,” Smith-Cameron had said.
She was right — there was more. This season, she manifested a return to the comedy series, appearing in two episodes, and continued to be the thorn in Deborah’s side.
On the episode “D’Amazing Race,” Deborah and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) hunt Kathy down to get the rights to “Who’s Making Dinner?,” the sitcom that Deborah and her former husband starred in and wrote. Kathy actually owns the rights to the show. But she’ll give Deborah what she wants — but only in exchange for something she knows Deborah won’t give up: their late mother’s salt and pepper shakers that are in Deborah’s possession.
Later in the season, Kathy returns — this time in Deborah’s dreams, or should that be nightmares? When Deborah steps on stage at her Madison Square Garden show, she looks down to see that she’s completely naked, and the audience is filled with versions of her sister laughing and mocking her.
“I’m a projection of Deborah’s brain,” Smith-Cameron says. Pulling off Deborah’s nightmare was a “different kind of acting assignment” for Smith-Cameron. Showrunner Paul W. Downs was directing the episode and told her to “just go for it.” Standing in front of a green screen, Smith-Cameron shot multiple reactions, looking to her left and right, improvising a few comments, talking to the “other Kathys,” and giving Downs everything he needed to mash that scene together. Smith-Cameron could let loose because this was a different off-the-wall version of Kathy. “This is a nightmare, so I didn’t feel like I had to worry about being real,” she says.
How does Smith-Cameron see Kathy? “There’s a lot of conflict between Deborah and Kathy, but I don’t think Kathy is a bad person.”
She says she liked that Kathy wasn’t a quivering victim. “I think she’s pushing back against her bossy older sister.”
Smith-Cameron got to flex her creative muscles even further when she appeared on CBS hit “Elsbeth.”
On the show, she plays the director of New York’s most prestigious debutante ball, Isadora Langford. And yes, Smith-Cameron admits she did model Isadora’s whole persona on Vogue’s global chief content officer and former editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.
“You could tell by her dialogue that she had affectations, and she was very chippy about her past, and that’s why her story unfolded the way it did,” Smith-Cameron says.
The Wintour idea came from Smith-Cameron. When she received the script and offer, it was over Christmas break. “Nobody was answering emails, but I reached [director] Peter Sollett and the showrunner, Jonathan Tolins. I ran it by them. I said, ‘Look, I’m going to order an inexpensive wig off the internet that will either be ridiculous, and I’ll send it back, or it will work.’”
Sollett and Tolins went for it, and so did costume designer Dan Lawson. Lawson added statement necklaces and other jewelry, and even emulated her silhouette, putting Smith-Cameron in shirtwaist blouses. Smith-Cameron says, “It was not meant to be a dig at Ms. Wintour at all. It was a compliment because this woman was so desperate to seem that chic, that she would do an imitation, even if it’s second-rate.”
In the episode, a powerful patriarch is stabbed with a sword, and it’s up to the NYPD and Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) to find out who killed Sterling Barlowe (John Bedford Lloyd) and what their motives were.
Spoiler alert! It was Isadora who killed Sterling with a sword.
Stabbing someone with a sword was no easy feat. It required Smith-Cameron to work with the show’s stunt coordinator, Kevin Rogers. Rogers gave her all the tips she needed on how to wield the sword, which was as heavy as it looked. Smith-Cameron jokes, “John Bedford Lloyd is 6 feet 3 inches tall. I’m 5 feet 4 inches tall, and I’m coming in with a sword, and he’s not taking me seriously at all — he’s really funny in the episode, and he doesn’t think of her as a threat.”
Up next, Smith-Cameron has two independent movies that she’s working on, and next year, she’s going to shoot FX’s “Seven Sisters.”
It has been picked up to series and stars Elizabeth Olsen, Cristin Milioti and Smith-Cameron. Will Arbery is on board as the show’s scribe. Sean Durkin is directing.
The show follows a large, tight-knit family that begins to unravel when one sister, Adrienne (Olsen), starts communicating with a voice no one else can hear, forcing the family to confront long-buried secrets.
“It is the most compelling, strange, spooky genre piece, but also a family drama, and I play the matriarch of this family,” Smith-Cameron says. “I’m a very right-wing judge in Washington state who is running for the supreme court in Washington, and endorsed by the governor; she’s got a lot of political affiliations.”
While she can’t divulge much about the show, “We did shots in the pilot that were reminiscent of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Exorcist.’”
She is currently filming an independent film in Oklahoma and admits she would love to play a detective or a spy. And both her husband, filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, and his best friend, actor Matthew Broderick, agree.
“Matthew Broderick made this comment to Kenny,” Smith-Cameron says. “He said, ‘She’s a funny one. The wheels are always turning.’ Kenny will often say, ‘Oh, the turbine fans, I can feel them all whirling.’ I love to play those characters that you can —,” she breaks off, and adds: “They have to think, and nickels have to drop. I think that’s my niche, in a way, the inner dialogue, and I’m figuring things out.”
Maybe Smith-Cameron can manifest that next because there’s a surge for great roles for women in their 60s, and she hopes to ride the wave.
She’s seen a shift in roles for older women with Smart, Kathy Bates, Allison Janney and Mariska Hargitay leading the way. “There are so many great actresses in my food chain that are underused,” she says, adding, “It’s still surprising and fun to see a woman of a certain age not playing a grandmother, not playing a mother, not playing a battle axe boss because women of that age have a huge arsenal of life experience and brains.”