J. Smith-Cameron Knows What You’re Thinking About Gerri

J. Smith-Cameron suggested that we meet for martinis at Bemelmans, the gilded piano bar at the Carlyle Hotel. I couldn’t have chosen better. The place, very old-school and very New York, seemed perfectly suited to Smith-Cameron, who has long been a fixture of the city’s theatre scene and who radiates effortless elegance. (She also smells divine, a trail of Narciso Rodriguez for Her eau de parfum.) Smith-Cameron has lately gained an avid following for her role as Gerri Kellman, the interim C.E.O. (and resident Mrs. Robinson) on “Succession,” the HBO series about a warring New York media family, which is midway through its third season. But few people in the cast are as dedicated to the city as Smith-Cameron, who moved to the West Village from the South in the nineteen-eighties to pursue a life on the stage. With a gift for wacky comic timing and the husky voice of a classic screwball heroine, Smith-Cameron became a stalwart player on the Broadway and Off Broadway scenes—a “bread-and-butter actor,” as she put it. In 1998, she won an Obie Award for her commanding performance as a shifty, melodramatic con artist in Douglas Carter Beane’s play “As Bees in Honey Drown.” Two years later, she married the celebrated playwright turned filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, and together they became a kind of theatrical power couple, holding court at one of their favorite local haunts, the now defunct Café Loup.

For many years, Smith-Cameron, who is originally from Louisville, Kentucky, and still has a hint of a Southern drawl, operated under the radar. She liked it that way. Her dream, she told me, was merely to keep the lights on with stimulating stage work. She did act occasionally in films, namely in Lonergan’s three-hour 2011 epic “Margaret,” in which she is magnetic as the preening actress mother of Anna Paquin’s protagonist. But it was not until “Succession,” a bona fide sensation, that Smith-Cameron found herself famous beyond her Broadway bubble. Suddenly, hundreds of strangers were responding to her tweets—Smith-Cameron is very active on Twitter—with effusive commentary about her onscreen flirtations with the much younger Roman Roy, the horny scallywag played by Kieran Culkin. At the age of sixty-four, Smith-Cameron finds herself swarmed with “shippers” who make gushing fan art about her character’s sex life. She is loving every minute of it.

Full disclosure: our rendezvous at Bemelmans didn’t feel like a standard professional journalistic encounter. The martinis were ice-cold, and our waiter kept bringing us toasted cheese crackers. A woman nearby had brought along her two Shih Tzus, which wore fussy hair ribbons and sat beside her as she ate a slice of cake. I floated out of the restaurant tipsy from the drinks and the good company. When I checked Twitter on my way home, I saw that Smith-Cameron had tweeted, “i just had the greatest first date ever.” The feeling was mutual. Our conversation from that night—and on a follow-up call—has been condensed and edited. (Warning: mild Episode 5 spoilers ahead.)

How did you know you wanted to do “Succession”?

I had seen “In the Loop,” so I knew Jesse Armstrong’s name. Then, when I had the audition, they sent me a link for the pilot so I could get the tone of it, but I couldn’t get it to play! So I was, like, Fuck it. Doug Aibel, who has cast my husband’s films, was the casting director at that point. He cast “Margaret.” Well, I mean, Kenny had cast me in “Margaret,” but, you know. I guess it was perhaps Doug’s idea to see some women for that part, because it was written for a man. It was Jerry, J-E-R-R-Y, in the scripts that I read. The first scene that we shot was between Kieran and me, but it was supposed to be a guy, so the crude language in it was just the way they always talk to each other. I tried to do this thing where I straddled being unflappable but being grossed out. You know how Gerri is always wincing and rolling her eyes and pretending she didn't hear? But she’s not clutching her pearls. It’s so crazy, because I’m such a dizzy dame. Like, I wouldn’t be a good Gerri in real life.

What’s a “dizzy dame”?

I’m kind of daffy. You know, like Carole Lombard.

Have you always been blond?

Oh, no, I’m really a dark brunette. I have a brunette personality.

Did you always like old movies growing up?

I didn’t watch much TV. I just read books. I lived mostly in South Carolina. I was born in Kentucky but we moved around the Southeast. We settled down in Greenville, South Carolina, for a long time. There weren’t VCRs and stuff like that yet. I have a big sister who I’m really close with, and she introduced me to cultural things a lot. She would introduce me to Broadway musicals—like, we put on the album, the LP, of “Oliver!” and would sing all the numbers. We watched old movies on Saturday mornings. And then I’ve just always loved them as an adult. I discovered Preston Sturges in my early adulthood.

Oh! I just saw “Sullivan’s Travels” for the first time this summer.

I’m so jealous of you that you just saw it! Veronica Lake was pregnant when she made it—did you know that? And I’ve always been in love with Joel McCrea. You know how he is so cranky? I married a cranky guy! I mean, O.K., that’s an understatement. He’s very cranky. When we met, we had a little snappy exchange.

Why were you snapping at each other?

It was at this evening of short, one-scene plays. Kenny presented the seed that became the movie “You Can Count on Me.” It was by far the best play. And he was also in a different play, being very adorable and very cranky. So I was, like, Who is that cranky guy? Is he gay or married or something? Because I just felt like I knew everyone in the theatre world at that time. I found out that he’d written the really good play of the evening. Then I passed him in a stairwell, and he was carrying his bike. I said, “Your play reminds me of a William Inge play or something.” And he was, like, “I don’t really know who he is.” And I said, “Did you go to college?” And he went, “Yes!” And I said, “Well, I didn’t, and I know who William Inge is!” And that was the whole first exchange. Right out of a Preston Sturges film.

What was your first big acting gig?

I got cast to do a whole season of regional theatre in Miami, in Coconut Grove. There’s a beautiful old theatre there that I think is empty now. I got hired to play all the ingénue roles when I was twenty. I did Ophelia, “Agnes of God,” “A Christmas Carol.” It was a real paycheck, and I joined Actors’ Equity.

Is that when you started going by J.?

My birth name is Jeannie Smith. When I went away to college, that suddenly felt very little-girlish to me. When I signed up for the auditions, I just put “J,” period, Smith. It became kind of a mystique, because they would call me to read any part—like, even the grandpa part. It was like being named John Doe or something! When I joined Equity, though, I couldn’t be just “J. Smith,” because there were too many people I could be mistaken for. So I took a family name, which is Cameron, and I was “J. Cameron” for a while. Then I made a Victor Nuñez movie, and it went to the New York Film Festival. He put “J. Smith-Cameron” in the program. He kind of made it up. I kept thinking I would sort it out later, because it sounded a little pretentious. At the time, I felt like a phony Brit in an Agatha Christie drama, like, “Oh, Lady Smith-Cameron.”

Did you ever join a theatre company in New York City?

I was in a short-lived but fantastic theatre company called Drama Department. It only existed for a few years. I did this play with them called “As Bees in Honey Drown,” by Douglas Carter Beane. This was his first big hit. I played a con artist who made up her personality from watching old movies. Her persona is made up of Rosalind Russell, Liza Minnelli, Audrey Hepburn, and Tallulah Bankhead. That was a formative experience. Then I was in “Lend Me a Tenor,” which was a hit, so I got stuck in it. Most plays don’t run on and on unless they’re musicals. I was in it for a year, which for a straight play is . . . Well, you lose your mind several times.

It does feel like doing eight shows a week is a quick way to lose your sanity. You must have great backstage horror stories.

My friend Patricia Elliott, an actress I did “The Voice of the Turtle” with, told me a great story. She was in “A Little Night Music” when that was the hot ticket. And she looked out, and there was Richard Burton in the house seats, looking at her like a goddess. She was kind of flirting with Richard in the footlights. And then it came to her verse, and she completely blanked. When she got offstage, completely weirded out, her dresser smacked her across the face!

Did you ever have something go wrong like that, where you forgot your lines?

Oh, many times. When you’re in a long run of something, it’s a bit like you’re on a tour of duty. You have horrible shows. “As Bees in Honey Drown” is this really frothy comedy, and was really successful. But there was one night when no one laughed at all. It was surreal, and we were all flipping out, but we trundled along. It’s kind of good, because then you’re not trying for the laugh and you’re just trying to play the truth of the moment. But also you’re humiliated.

Something that people say about “Succession” is that it’s written like a play. Does that track for you?

They mean that people talk more than they usually do on camera. That’s one thing you really notice when you’re a theatre actor. Two or three sentences in a row seems like a wordy scene in a movie, but in a play you talk in paragraphs. It feels like literature. I don’t mean that to sound pretentious, but it’s more about the words. So I think “Succession” is a little bit of an anomaly for a TV show, because it’s streams of long sentences. People make this analogy of it being Shakespearean, and I definitely see that. It has very big, sweeping themes, and the grudges are so universal and yet grand.

Were you always a playwright-forward actress, in that it begins with the writing?

Exactly. You’ve completely perceived me. I married a playwright. It’s always the writing.

I loved your performance in “Margaret,” your husband’s film that involved a lot of studio drama surrounding its release. That ordeal had to be heartbreaking.

I was feeling it so much more for Kenny than for myself. It is definitely his big masterpiece so far. I think he feels sort of philosophical about it now, because the extended cut is out there. I think, in the back of his mind, he’s still hoping maybe he can tinker with it and rerelease it someday. Because, you know, he never really got a chance to finish it to his own liking. It got very fraught, and there was a lot of quibbling about how long it should be. That’s become moot, because there are all these long movies now.

You are so good in it as Joan, the main character’s mother, who is a working theatre actor.

He must have had me in mind, because it’s so close to the facts of my life right then. But I think he wrote it trying not to be attached to the idea of me playing it, because he wasn’t sure who would finance the movie and whether he’d have to get a huge movie star for that part.

The role makes being an actor look, well, not always so complimentary to the profession. Her daughter is crumbling and she is too busy to notice.

It’s so interesting that you say that. Maybe that’s just a blind spot for me. I feel like he doesn’t go out of his way to make Joan sympathetic, but I feel like she has a very understandable dilemma. She’s doing eight shows a week. She doesn’t know what she did wrong with her daughter. She isn’t aware she messed up. And it is unnerving to open a play. She has no help. She has no partner. The ex-husband is no help. She has no love life. So she’s trying? I don’t know. Theatre actors do not make a bunch of money. So just even trying to be a single parent of two kids in Manhattan—I find that sort of noble. I guess a lot of people who aren’t in our business will just find actors of any stripe kind of frivolous. I just have to accept that. But I don’t think so. I feel like it’s an important part of society. Life as a New York theatre actor is not glamorous.

Does it feel strange to you at this stage in your career to have such a star turn? I see people responding to your every tweet with things like “Yes, queen!”

Well, you know, that’s weird, no matter what. I don’t take it very seriously. And I’m trying not to get too caught up in it. I didn’t work for this. I didn’t really aim for this. So it’s kind of a lark. Like with “Rectify,” the show that I was on before—I had a proper lead in it. And it was very beloved by critics. I was super proud of it. But I wasn’t, like, the breakout popular character. And I didn’t experience the same sort of wave of notoriety. I just feel like, in my lifetime, the whole idea of being a television actor has changed so much. When I first got to New York, I had agents who were sure I was going to end up on a network sitcom like “Cheers” or “Friends.” I just never saw myself particularly doing that. It always frightened and unnerved me. I wanted to play Shakespeare parts and do new plays and do indie movies. And that’s what I’ve done. So, in my own estimation, I was living the dream already.

So let’s talk about Gerri a little bit. I’m tempted just to talk about her caftans. I got to speak to your costume designer, Michelle Matland, during the first season.

You know, Michelle told me this great thing in Season 2. I had to do that scene where I made Kieran go in the bathroom. You know the one. And I was really having trouble working it out, because it changes micro-beat by micro-beat. First, I’m just consoling him about Shiv, and then it shifts to being horrified about what he has in mind. And then I scold him, and then I see he’s turned on, and then I’m kind of being seductive, maybe. And then I’m, like, “Get in the bathroom!,” like a dominatrix, and then I’m laughing. It was like crossing an obstacle course.

I remember just sitting in my car, because it was street cleaning that day, and calling Michelle and saying, “I don’t know what Gerri thinks of this.” As much as I think Kieran is wildly attractive, I think Gerri would not give him the time of day. She’s so careful. And she’s known him as a little boy. I was very nonplussed about how to know what I felt, or what my character felt about this happening. And Michelle said, “Well, probably Gerri doesn’t know, either.” It was so obvious! Gerri is puzzled at first. And scandalized, intrigued, amused in turns. Tricky, but that is completely the truth of it. She was exactly right about that.

Gerri is having a really interesting journey this season, and, I think, kind of an unexpected one. The fan-service way to do this season would be to have Gerri and Roman get together.

I feel like Gerri is getting annoyed with him. But also I really want him to come through this. I want him to step up and seem to be professional. But I also sort of suspect Roman may be getting under her skin a little bit, too.

A little bit like you see a lost puppy and it follows you home?

And he’s a weird sex fiend.

But Roman doesn’t have sex.

Right. But when a very sexy weirdo decides to make you his obsession, some part of you is, like, Ooh, you know?

You and Kieran have such great banter. People are fully obsessed with you two.

Yes, it’s wild. And I think it’s adorable. But it’s also a little worrisome. Jesse is absolutely not someone to pander to fans. He wants to be true to how the characters feel. The fans all want Roman and Gerri to ride off in the sunset together. It’s very neutralized in real life. Although there is some chemistry there that I never expected. Like, there is undeniable chemistry with us.

Did the vibe between you and Kieran develop organically?

Yes. What happened is that Kieran and I were friends. When you’re on a film set, your creative juices are going and you’re also nervous and you keep having to pick yourself up. Every day is a marathon—it has highs and lows, and you have to kind of keep surfing it. And so Kieran and I, in a friendly way, started this sort of silly flirtation, because we found we were sympathetic to each other. We got each other’s sense of humor. We would riff off each other. It was funny that Roman was flirting with Gerri, to us. Well, inappropriate and funny. So we just kept it up. At some point the writers became aware of it.

So the flirting was just a private in-joke at first?

Well, one day after we finished a scene they just kept the camera rolling, as they do, and we had to improv. I can’t remember what we said, but we had some kind of flirty repartee. And then apparently we both looked back over our shoulder at each other, without realizing. That was the end of Season 1. Then I guess in the writer’s room for Season 2 they wrote it into the story line.

Fascinating! Are you close with the rest of the cast?

We’re all pretty close. I’ve made some incredibly rich female friendships. One thing I would say, and one thing that could be a little truer and more of the moment, is [that] I feel like Gerri would have some female cohorts. Dagmara [Domińczyk], who plays Karolina, and I hit it off on Day 1. And for a while Gerri and Karolina were always in scenes together. Dagmara is the coolest. Now Logan has a new assistant, named Kerry, played by Zoe Winters. Zoe and I have become friends. Gerri’s going to want to groom a protégé. So we will see.

And what about Shiv?

Sarah [Snook] and I get along great. All that friction in the show comes from Shiv, but maybe in her mind all that friction comes from Gerri.

Shiv is going through a lot this season.

Poor Shiv. Let’s just all feel sorry for Shiv for a moment.

Let’s talk about Episode 5 a little bit, the shareholders’ meeting. I think it is such an incredible episode for Gerri. You’re running back and forth between the stage and Logan’s U.T.I.

We were on “Colbert” recently, and we had to do this absurd thing where we all went around and said one word that came to mind about Season 3. When it got to me, I said, “Cat.” To me, when Logan says that thing about the dead cat, and the assistant pretends to put it in a bag, and then Roman tells Kendall something like “That is an imaginary cat. Now could you please fuck off?”—that to me is the ultimate moment of “Succession” drama and comedy, in a nutshell. It’s, like, chef’s kiss.

The U.T.I. plotline is so specific and bizarre.

And it’s why it took Gerri so long to know when to stop taking him seriously about the deal!

You’re running point on all these crises, and then you just get shoved out onstage.

Part of that scene was my idea. I had a microphone on the podium, but I told them to mic me before. When I crossed Frank, I wanted to say, “Fuck you very much,” with a smile. I thought, Let them catch it, in case they can use it. Then they wanted me to say other insults to him.

It’s incredible how much Gerri has been woven into the fabric of the show, from what was once a bit part.

It feels like an amazing triumph. Because I just love the show so much. The first season, I was just a rabid fan. I thought, This is a feast. So I just insinuated myself into all these scenes, which is what Gerri does. I just feel like I landed in clover.