J. Smith-Cameron

Actors need to learn when their character is front and center and when it's more in the background.

People think that, when you're doing comedy, nothing means anything, that people run around and act crazy. It's quite the opposite. The stakes are life-and-death.

You go down South, and they're quirky; they have culture, and it's not uniformly true of our country. Our country has gotten a little blanded out, big sections of it. Even if you disagree with the politics, you have to appreciate the cuisine, the music, the literature.

As a child, I studied violin. My sister, who's 10 years older, was the actress in the family. I was painfully shy.