Anna Deavere Smith almost turned down the role of National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally onThe West Wing.
Her then publicist, the late Stephen Rivers, a big fan of the NBC political drama, intervened.
He was like, Youre out of your mind, you have to go!
Get on that plane!
He was like a terrier, she says with a laugh.
I knew Condi from Stanford, where I had been a professor, says Smith, 70.
So my joke is, Im actually the first African-American woman national security advisor.
But, she says, another powerful woman also chimed in on casting.
I also had known Madeleine.
She would say it’s because they would be filming around her house in Georgetown.
You need a secretary of state, and it ought to be a woman.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:I lucked out because I don’t do television that often.
It’s just really high-class people, let alone very talented people, but really great human beings.
Martin Sheen should have an award for just being one of the best human beings in the world.
Im curious about your time workingwith the late John Spencer.
First of all, he was incredibly disciplined.
Yes, besides having to talk quickly you had so much military lingo to get right.
Even my mother was like, “I don’t know what you’re saying.
It’s too fast for me.”
It was a language that people don’t really speak.
[As a recurring character] I was there infrequently.
Usually I got my stuff the night before, so I didn’t have that luxury.
Just a few people were applauding.
“How many of you are applauding because you saw me very infrequently onThe West Wing?”
[Louder, more enthusiastic] Clap, clap, clap, yay, yay, yay.
Was it fun to play her?
It was a bit like that.
I used to get my hair done in L.A., at a place called Menage a Trois.
It’s no longer there.
There was a Japanese hair stylist I would see, who would never say anything to me.
Sometimes hairstylists would be a little bit snobby.
And one day he walked by me and he said, “Oh, oh.
Youre on that show.”
I looked at him, and he goes, “Yeah, yeah.
I don’t know.
You talk so fast, I don’t know what youre saying.
I just know every time you come on, everybody’s scared.”
[Laughs] I thought, well, I guess I’m doing my job.
Were you a fan of the show, independent of your participation on it?
It wasn’t that I wasn’t a fan, but I wasn’t tuned into it.
At the time I was involved in multiple projects.
I had that thing happening at Harvard.
I had not been watching the show.
When I look back on it, it’s sort of ridiculous.
So I have to thank the late Stephen Rivers for insisting that I get on that plane.
