Actress Lois Smith with Josh Hamilton

Josh Hamilton: I’m Josh Hamilton.

Joe Skinner: And I’m Joe Skinner.

Josh Hamilton: And this is the American Masters Podcast, where we have conversations with the people who change us. Today, I talk to award-winning actor of the stage and screen, Lois Smith.

Lois Smith: I really was able to make a living as an actor from the beginning. It’s partly because there was so much television in New York then. You really had to make it across the studio for the next cue, changing your clothes along the way. It was amazingly exciting.

Josh Hamilton: Lois Smith’s career has spanned generations of film and theater history, form her highly celebrated turn in the 2017 sci-fi drama Marjorie Prime, and as a nun in the Greta Gerwig-directed Lady Bird, going all the way back to her film debut in 1955’s East of Eden, alongside actor James Dean.

Joe Skinner: Not to mention starring alongside Jack Nicholson in the classic 1970 New Hollywood film, Five Easy Pieces. And for me personally, I also grew up loving her in big Blockbuster films like Twister and Minority Report.

Josh Hamilton: But her real roots are on the stage, where she’s a fixture on the New York theater scene, and a member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company. She earned two Tony Award nominations for Steppenwolf shows that landed on Broadway, including 1990’s Grapes of Wrath, and the 1996 revival of Buried Child.

Joe Skinner: Josh recently had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with Lois right here in New York.

Josh Hamilton Hi Lois.

Lois Smith Hi Josh.

Josh Hamilton Thanks for coming down today.

Lois Smith My pleasure.

Josh Hamilton So we’ve known each other for a number of years and we’ve worked together a little bit and we’ve known each other socially and last year you starred in my wife Lily Thorn’s play. I’m just really happy to get the chance to ask you some things I’ve wanted to know about your amazing life and career. So a lot has been made about the fact that at a time in life when few people in any field are continuing their earlier work pace that you’re working nonstop and doing some of the most celebrated work of your career. But it seems to me that you’ve always worked and loved to work since your Broadway debut in 1952.

Lois Smith That’s right, yes. A play on Broadway, that was my first job as an actor. Yeah.

Josh Hamilton Do you remember when it first occurred to you that acting might be something you’d want to do?

Lois Smith When I was a very little girl. My father who worked for the telephone company and rarely saw a movie and rarely saw theater took night classes in acting and directing. Still a kind of mystery to me. But he did it because he wanted to put plays on in the church; he was a pillar of the church in the Protestant church we belonged to in Topeka, Kansas, and then later in St. Joseph, Missouri. Later he moved to Seattle, where he had longed to move to the west coast, by taking trips he realized that’s where he wanted to be. But every time we went someplace the front of the church began to sort of slowly change a little so that it accommodated the plays that he put on. I was a very little girl when this started and I would go with him to rehearsals because it was fun and I would sit there, learn all the lines; if somebody wasn’t there I could say their part. That was clearly the beginning. I was with my beloved father and that’s what we were doing. When there was a part for me, I think I played Eve in some sort of pageant when I was about probably 4 or 5. But I don’t have a lot of memory about that; I do just know that that’s where it started. And then I went a couple of years to the University of Washington and was in many plays. It happened to be a remarkable drama department in that they had two theaters that ran year round, cast by students in the drama department. One was a round theater. It was the first permanent round theater that wasn’t in a tent. It was just beginning to be something that occurred. And the other was a proscenium stage. All year long, these two theaters put on plays that were cast with students. Each play ran for six weeks, six nights a week to a paid audience. It was the most incredible experience. I don’t know anything else like it and of course it doesn’t exist anymore. But that was part of my training. At the same time I was taking acting classes, and because of this teacher’s history in New York City at the time he was there, we were reading Stanislavski and Boleslawski and Rappoport, and doing exercises and scene work that later became very prominent.

Josh Hamilton: Did you feel like you were part of a new movement in acting?

Lois Smith: I think I became aware of it later when I was in New York. The main thing was that I had so much experience at doing a play not just for a weekend, but Monday to Thursday they would let the theater out to groups who would, you know, take it and sell tickets to their members, and then on Friday and Saturday it was open to the public. So I had all this experience like a stock company really, of performing six nights a week for six weeks, and each play was amazing.

Josh Hamilton: That’s something that doesn’t happen anymore.

Lois Smith: It doesn’t happen.

Josh Hamilton: Yeah it used to be the best training ground for actors. It’s interesting, I know a lot of actors talk about the theater as their church or sort of a sacred space and I always thought it’s interesting that you really did come out of that tradition.

Lois Smith: I really did. Yes.

Josh Hamilton: And so your father had some concerns about you being an actress. How did the rest of your siblings and your mother react to your career?

Lois Smith: I think it was just an anomaly. It had nothing to do with the family I grew up in. I had a brother who sang and occasionally acted in school. But that’s not what he pursued in his life. It was really not part of my family. I think they were interested. Then I went to New York and started working and that was of interest. By then I was the width of the country away from my family, and of course I went back to Seattle often and–but it was not a family profession.

Josh Hamilton: So your first play was ‘a time for ginger’ with Melvyn Douglas–

Lois Smith: ‘Time Out For Ginger.’ Yes, with Melvyn Douglas who became a close friend, and a wonderful beginning.

Josh Hamilton: Do you remember where you were when you got that job?

Lois Smith: I was able to get some appointments and make the rounds. And we actually made the rounds in those days: one would go to offices–

Josh Hamilton: Drop off your headshots?

Lois Smith: Yes, drop off your headshots, meet the people and sit and talk; and I had an audition for this play, ‘Time Out For Ginger,’ which had three teenage girls in it. I remember during that audition the man who was partly on the telephone while I was delivering my monologue. But when this play came along they, I think they called in, you know, every young girl they knew who was, might be right for this. So I got this audition. And I remember sitting in a room at the agency with the semi-circle of people, including Melvyn Douglas and the director Shepard Traub, we read the scene and I could see that it went very well. And at the end one of them said to me, “And what have you done?” And I said, “Nothing, that’s what’s wrong with me.” (laughs) But I got the part! And before I got in I was sitting in the waiting room with another actress and we looked at each other and I remember thinking, we sort of look alike, and I asked her what she was auditioning, for the older sister, and I was auditioning for the middle sister. We both got the parts as it turned out; her name was Mary Hartig, and she ended up marrying the playwright later. That was my beginning. The last day of that run. It ran all season, Time Out For Ginger. And when it closed, I believe in June, the very last performance… My character in the last scene was dressed up as Victoria Regina and was about to be in the school play, and she had a scene with her mother and father, with Melvyn Douglas and Polly Rowles, and I was off and they were coming to see the play that evening, and I was sort of telling them how to behave I think. And at the end of this scene, my last scene, I left. And Melvyn Douglas ad libbed that last night: “She’s going to be a great actress, that kid.” And I don’t know if I’ve ever been given a more lovely gift. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing? (laughs)

Josh Hamilton: That’s Amazing. And were there any actors at that time who you emulated or when you came to New York thought, ah! Who were sort of heroes to you?

Lois Smith: I guess I was very aware of Julie Harris; and later we worked together, not very much later, in the movie ‘East of Eden’ which was my first film.

Josh Hamilton: Do you remember where you were and how you felt when you got the ‘East of Eden’ job?

Lois Smith: What I remember is that I got the call that I got the job. By then my husband was at school at Harvard, and I had this feeling that I didn’t have anybody to tell. I mean of course I told him. But I felt by myself. And I remember taking a huge long walk in New York City, which I love to do anyway, but I remember that sense of, ‘Oh, oh look at this, I have a job in a Broadway play, now what? Wait for the first day of rehearsal!’ (laughs)

Josh Hamilton: For some actors it’s always that that’s really the best part of any job is finding out you get it, until you realize, ‘Oh, now I have to do it.’ (laughs). So when you first came to New York and you were studying with a lot of the teachers who had come out of the Russian movement, and you worked at the Actors Studio, is that right?

Lois Smith: Yes I auditioned for the Actors Studio with one of my student friends from the University of Washington and didn’t get in. And then sometime later, I don’t remember exactly how long, I auditioned again and did get in.  And Lee Strasberg was at that time running it and the only moderator and teacher there. What happened to me was, after my experience at the University of Washington. And I came to New York, and it was in the early 50s; the Group Theatre had been roughly the decade of the 40s and I was aware of it while I was still in Seattle and read about it a bit. And that was finished. But the people from the group became the directors, the actors, the teachers, from then on, for really quite a while including even now actually. And that was very much part of what I inherited and became a part of as, certainly, as a beginner and not even a very well-informed beginner. But that was my continual training actually.

Josh Hamilton: You didn’t have that burning ambition to become a Hollywood star?

Lois Smith: Oh dear, I did not. No I did not.

Josh Hamilton: You seem like someone who’s always just gone to where the good roles are and the good work and the good writers especially.

Lois Smith: Oh, listen, and a person who is really lucky to keep working the way I did.

Josh Hamilton: But some people, you talked about your friend who went to Hollywood and how they sort of, you make these choices, and you seem to have worked in almost every medium in a very democratic way.

Lois Smith: That was so lucky. There was so much television in New York. It was live when I started. My first job in television was live. You know you really had to make it across the studio for the next queue, changing your clothes on the way. It was amazingly exciting. Before long they became taped instead of live. But the first ones were live.

Josh Hamilton: You always struck me as someone who seemed singularly uninterested in fame per se. You always seemed to be drawn toward the best writing, the best storytelling. But have there been times in your life when you sort of wish you’d been more famous just in order to have access to meatier roles? Or do you feel like your versatility and ability to work so much was almost because you weren’t saddled with that kind of oversize celebrity that tends to pigeonhole people sometimes?

Lois Smith: You know, I don’t even know how to answer that. This profession requires having enough attention, some bit of fame and enough money to keep at it, and I feel very fortunate in both of those ways. I really was able to make a living as an actor from the beginning and that’s–

Josh Hamilton: A rarity.

Lois Smith: A rarity; and it’s partly because there was so much television in New York then. There was lots of television and that the Broadway theater, where I had my first job, there were so many plays I can’t–I don’t even remember the numbers but it dwarfs the number of Broadway plays now.

Josh Hamilton: And with all those plays going on, was there a different sense of the community of actors in New York and theater at that time?

Lois Smith: There certainly was a sense of community of actors. You know, I guess it’s always hard; as the years went on I find myself thinking, ‘well how do people now do it?’ You know, I guess it was hard and it was hard to find a place to live and pay the rent. But my goodness, nothing like, now I think, where do they live? They live–

Josh Hamilton: With 10 roommates in distant Queens.

Lois Smith: They come–yeah. 10 roommates in, yes in Queens or farther away than that. It astonishes me how hard that must be because that was not that hard for me.

Josh Hamilton: so coming out of the Actors Studio over the arc of your career–have you been aware of an evolution in the craft of acting? Or do you, as you’ve worked with different generations and different directors coming up… Or have you just always approached the work as the way you work and it fits into whatever scheme you find yourself in?

Lois Smith: I guess I haven’t felt a lack of versatility or ability but maybe I haven’t gone very far afield either. It seemed to me that what happened was that the intimacy and psychological connections that were basically what happened with this Russian influence in all of these teachers… I still see it all the time. I see it in old movies; I don’t know if they were directly influenced by this, I’ve heard it said that it was like change, the sort of artificial–at least in England–drawing room comedy sort of artificial-ness. And that’s probably nothing that I was ever really part of. But that doesn’t seem to me a problem. Drawing room comedy benefits from intimate depth of exploration. And that doesn’t seem to me to be a problem.

Josh Hamilton: And I know you’ve been nominated for two Tony Awards, for Buried Child and for Grapes of Wrath.

Lois Smith: Those two, Grapes of Wrath and Buried Child, became part of the Steppenwolf Company. Grapes of Wrath was my first working with them and the Chicago production was in ’88 I believe, 1998, and then it came to Broadway in ’90 I guess. And Buried Child, which Gary Sinise directed marvelously–Sam Shepard wanted to do it again and to work on it. So he was with us both in the Chicago production and in New York.

Josh Hamilton: I saw the Chicago production. It was amazing.

Lois Smith: I feel enormously fortunate, and they are both very precious and, you know, pillars for me of good work and good luck.

Josh Hamilton: Suppose I’ll be remiss if I don’t ask you about some of your most iconic films and jobs. When you were doing Five Easy Pieces, playing the sister of Jack Nicholson, did Bob Rafelson…did he work in a way that he was sort of, you know, one of the young turks of that, in Hollywood in the ’70s?

Lois Smith: Yes, it was really sort of the beginning of the independents.

Josh Hamilton: Yeah. Were you aware that you were working with a sort of a new breed of director?

Lois Smith: In a way yes. But I was in Los Angeles doing Harold Crimmins production of Uncle Vanya playing Sonya when I got the call about Five Easy Pieces, Bob had been working at Channel 13 in New York, they called play of the week. I did Miss Julie and The Master Builder there. And Bob was there so he knew me from that, and he sent one of his producers to see Vanya, and then they offered me the part, which was lovely, in Five Easy Pieces. So that’s how I got that. And Bob Rafelson… I just very recently came back from doing a Wes Anderson film in France. We had dinner every night. The whole company and the people who most of them worked with him many many years and over many films. And it’s a very communal, inclusive, friendly way to make a movie company.  The only previous experience that I’d had anywhere like it was with Bob Rafelson. We did Five Easy Pieces we were–we all stayed at the same motel in Vancouver Island where that part of the film took place. And every night we all had dinner together, with Bob at the head of the table, talking about the day’s work and the next day’s work and it was…

Josh Hamilton: Would you watch the dailies?

Lois Smith: You know, I don’t think we had dailies to watch. I’m trying to remember. In my earliest films and not even just the earliest–that’s another thing that was such a wonderful thing: we used to, at the end of the day, which would be like six o’clock not 12 midnight–

Josh Hamilton: Civilized.

Lois Smith: –we would watch the dailies. There’d be like sandwiches; you know maybe. That was how it was and it was awfully…I thought, oh that’s the way it is, but it’s not that way any longer. (laughs)

Josh Hamilton: So you’ve worked with I’d say I guess four generations of some of the best directors working in film. I mean starting with you Elia Kazan and Mervyn LeRoy and then Bob Rafelson and Paul Mazursky. One of my favorite performances of yours is in Next Stop, Greenwich Village.

Lois Smith: Yes, yes, right.

Josh Hamilton: And then another one of my favorites is in the next generation of Steven Spielberg and Taylor Hackford, but in Minority Report, you’re seen in the greenhouse with Tom Cruise, it is one of my, I think it’s one of my favorite performances of yours.

Lois Smith: Thanks, I like it too. I love that, that was…

Josh Hamilton: And now with Wes Anderson and Greta Gerwig and…

Lois Smith: Am I not a fortunate person? (laughs)

Josh Hamilton: It’s pretty amazing, yeah. And I suppose we should talk a little bit about one of your most celebrated recent performances in Marjorie Prime. You created the role on stage and then made the film, and then went back to stage which is one of the most unusual situations ever–

Lois Smith: Most unusual. And a play I truly love. You know, in recent years I’ve been working in the theater a lot in New York and pretty much on 42nd Street. That’s just what happened, that’s where…well it’s been at Signature Theatre and Playwrights Horizons mostly and I’ve been so lucky to be really back and forth for the two of them for, I think I’ve done five plays at Signature and four at Playwrights Horizons over the years, and many of them in really recent years. So it’s… I feel very fortunate about that.

Josh Hamilton: Do you remember a certain point when you realized that you weren’t having to audition anymore and that..?

Lois Smith: For the most part I don’t. Once in a while, still, especially if it’s a film, you know. But mostly I don’t…Oh yeah that is…

Josh Hamilton: That’s a perk. (laughs)

Lois Smith: It is certainly a perk. Yes. Just hang around long enough. (laughs) Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Hamilton: You know, you sort of came of age in the era of unions and we were talking about sort of anyone who is lucky enough to spend a life working as a performer…

Lois Smith: Yes this morning getting ready to come here. I think I told you I was looking at my bank statement and it began to occur to me, not for the first time of course, the preparation for it talking about about all of this. Again I think you mentioned standing on the on the shoulders of giants. Well I think we all stand on each other’s shoulders and hands and hearts and thoughts, it’s not only the giants. But when I first came to New York and became quickly I’m a member of Actors Equity and not much later of the Screen Actors Guild and at the time of what was then AFTRA – the television and radio – which are now joined together. I was aware that there was a fight going on when I was first here. Up until that point, actors who were applying for unemployment insurance had been required to take any job that came along and the Actors Equity was fighting that acting was a profession and you could… yes you’re looking for work but you’re looking for work as an actor and they won that battle. That was I barely knew about it. I was really brand new in this city. It’s huge. Also during my earlier years, actors being paid for residuals came into being. I remember at one point I was sent a bunch of- had to fill out a lot of stuff and get records because after a certain date, I don’t remember what that date is, actors now get residuals, which I still get. I was aware of that this morning. All these many years later. And very importantly, because I’ve been at this for a very long time, I draw a pension, because my union has arranged for pensions. And what a difference that is. This means that I can work and make money, which I’m fortunately able to do, but I’m also earning a pension and if I don’t work I’m okay. And that’s… That’s something that I think it’s very hard to understand if you’re young. There are less and less union members in our country and it has it has been a blessing financially to have this kind of support.

Josh Hamilton: Yeah not something to be complacent about. You’ve had a handful of writers that I feel like you’ve had a continuing relationship with Horton Foote Sam Shepard John Steinbeck. You know very-

Lois Smith: Chekhov.

Josh Hamilton: Chekhov. Yeah. Can you talk about how you’ve, what you’ve gotten from having a continuing relationship with a writer as opposed to just doing one piece by a writer? Do you find the themes and things that you threw lines you can find in some of these writers works for yourself?

Lois Smith: Oh oh definitely. My goodness.

Josh Hamilton: That’s the big question.

Lois Smith: In every case. Yes Chekhov is an early love and with with Horton. That kind of the pleasure of having a living writer who is so. Deeply involved and cares. He was an actor too and he loves actors and he’s there. He’s right. I speak of him in the present which which I guess I think of he feels that he has. Then Tennessee. I’ve worked in a couple of Tennessee’s plays and it’s not as though I was like a long continuing– but there still is that sense of this writer holds you up, holds you aloft and these are continuing blessings they really are, they’re continuing facts and you know well you are an actor. You know when you’re, when you’re in the presence of that kind of playwriting. I was thinking lately how collaborative what we do is. I once had a conversation with an old friend who’s a novelist and she tried to write a play and then she was horrified at the thought that somebody else was going to like interpret this. You never ever wanted to ever try that again. And I thought Oh my goodness that’s real the opposite of what we did. Yes. The opposite of what we do.

Josh Hamilton: Because you’ve done an enormous amount of new plays. Do you feel like there’s pros and cons to having the play right in the room and then sometimes the freedom of not having them in the room as well?

Lois Smith: Oh I love having them in the room. Yes. I recently worked with you know with very recently with Craig Lucas with Lily, Lily,  Lily Thorne and Jordan Harrison. I adore his work.

Josh Hamilton: Marjorie Pryor

Lois Smith: Marjorie Pryor Yeah yeah. So it’s a. It’s a very different thing you know with if you’re going to do Shakespeare which I’ve done so little of and that’s a regret. In those cases like I feel. Like maybe the job is to start from scratch as though it’s a new play. No,  but this is something I have not as much experience with as I would like to have but it’s very different. Here we are we’ve got the text. And. We always start with a text but when you start with the text and the writer at the same time it’s different. It’s much more. Well, they’re alive and with you. It’s a great treat. It’s lovely to have that combination.

Josh Hamilton: Yeah. And after having that experience of doing Marjorie prime on stage and then being made into a beautiful film by the great Michael Almereyda. Did it make you wish that other. It’s so rare that actors get to do movies of plays there and they are usually remade in a bigger scale with you know let’s start with a movie star.

Lois Smith: I know that was really so lucky. Michael Almereyda whom I’ve known for many years we did a film together many years ago and have been friends ever since. But he knew that I loved this play and he came out to see the first production of it which was in L.A. and afterwards said I’d like to make a film of this. And it happened. I mean really, really what good luck. He and I got him and Jordan together and they made an arrangement and it worked.

Josh Hamilton: Yeah sure did. I know you had to of two major relationships in your life with your first husband Leslie and then with the wonderful actor David Margulies. Was there something about being with someone who understands what it’s like to be an actor that you found different from those who aren’t actors?

Lois Smith: Yes it’s very different. And you know I know it’s hard to know how to talk about it. I certainly know it’s important. And now it’s three years since David’s death. I miss talking to him a lot and talking to him about acting when there are particular things. Somebody that you really know and who really not only knows but is good at and likes to explore it and talking about it. So I miss that terribly and I sometimes think. When something comes up you know I found myself really where I need to talk about this to somebody may not. And I think who? Who can I? Because often it’s not. You know you need some, need some background before it’s OK to just jump in.

Josh Hamilton: Yes. Yeah.

Lois Smith: Well Josh I may be calling on you.

Josh Hamilton: Anytime, you call me anytime. Well Lois, I can’t thank you enough for being here. It’s whenever I get to spend time with you I’m, I’m I feel grateful.

Lois Smith: Likewise I feel the same way. Thank you, Josh

Josh Hamilton: Thank you.

Joe Skinner: Actor and director Andre Gregory was Lois Smith’s colleague during their time at Philadelphia’s Theatre of the Living Arts in the 1960s. From the American Masters Digital Archive, here is Andre Gregory on the power of the theater.

Andre Gregory: Time, you see, is unique in the performing arts to the theater. It’s all about time, and it’s very close to life, in the sense that every night you’re born, you come on to the stage, you struggle a little bit, you laugh a little bit, you flounder a little bit, and then suddenly before you know it, it’s all over, and the performance is forgotten except in the distorted memories of those few people who saw it. So it is a life and a death every night.