Tasha Smith: The Uncontainable Star

The statuesque actress with the boundless energy and infectious personality trumpets her entrance with her high-octane “hellos,” her heartfelt hugs and her halogen smile. In Why Did I Get Married? the very mention of her character’s name by her co-stars incites reflexive laughter or “oooohs” in anticipation of some impending verbal volley.

Make no mistake about it, a lot of fans are going to see Why Did I Get Married Too? just to watch Angela inflict her damage.

“Well, I can just tell you that Angela shows her black behind and people are definitely getting checked,” Smith says before unfurling that lovable laugh. Then Smith tries to explain Angela‘s penchant for scorching her hapless victims like a blowtorch. “I think she has a disease. I think she has the ‘I-need-to-put-somebody-in-check’ disease. She’s the most fun character I’ve had a chance play. I would say that she is like an alter ego. Because everyone wants to have a little bit of Angela in them, you know?”

There is a love affair that moviegoers have developed with Smith that spills into her characters — especially Angela. They want Smith to win the race and they want her to increase the body count while she’s at it. Audiences cheer for Smith’s character to tear into someone’s carcass the way they cheered for Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger to mow down the bad guys with their oversized futuristic weapons of destruction. Except Angela’s weapons of choice are her poison-tipped tongue, her sonic-busting voice and her high-heel stilettos and — trust this — she leaves a trail of mangled egos and bruised feelings all over the screen. And the audience just eats it up like overpriced popcorn.

“Well, you know, I think somebody’s going to get knocked out in the first round,” she laughs at the boxing analogy of how many rounds it takes to dispatch her victims. “Somebody is going down.”

You almost want to look up movie showtimes even as you’re talking to her.

FAITH AND FEARLESSNESS:

Underneath her flawless bronze skin and behind that comedic appeal is a serious woman with an inspiring story that is not the least bit funny.

It was fearlessness that powered an 18-year-old Tasha Smith’s improbable migration from Camden, N.J., to Los Angeles. It was faith that enabled her to see success and stardom in a city that devours people and spits them back out to the towns from whence they came. With what she had to go through, Smith could teach a class on how to confront and overcome fear.

“A lot of times when we are confronted with fear, I look at it as an opportunity to overcome something, you know what I’m saying? Every time you overcome fear, you gain a strength within you,” she says. “I use the acronym F.E.A.R. — False Evidence Appearing Real. Whatever it is that you fear, fear will try to make it bigger than it really is … and make you think that the result of it will be worse than it ever could be.”

Smith learned how to flip the script on fear and she talks about how to overcome it in her company’s acting class as well as during the motivational talks she often gives.

“Faith and fear work exactly the same way. We can see our future through our fear, or we can see our future through our faith. And I’d rather look at my life through my faith, look at the possibilities and be optimistic,” she says. “Because what do we have to lose? Honestly, what do we have to lose in life to go after those things in life that we’re dreaming of? We have absolutely nothing to lose. As far as I’m concerned, we have everything to gain.”

This was Smith’s mind-set when success didn’t greet her at the airport when she landed in L.A. as a newly minted thespian. This was what kept her going even when drugs caused her to take unwarranted detours from her path of success. She definitely needed to cradle her faith like a newborn baby when she was homeless and sleeping in her car. That’s the thought she kept in her head when she was washing up every day at the beach to get clean. Now she is able to harvest the fruit from the seeds of success she planted years ago. And she’ll tell you it is much sweeter because she had to wait a little longer to pluck the fruit of fame.
“I thank God I didn’t quit,” she says. “And I always say this to my friends or when I’m teaching a class, ‘Don’t grow weary while you’re doing good. Because everyone has a due season and they will reap if they don’t give up.’ We have to have that persevering spirit. It’s never a race that’s finished. It’s a continual marathon.”

She utters those words, and you don’t detect the slightest bit of bitterness in her voice at the circumstances she had to endure to arrive at prosperity. “Our dreams are going to cost us something. We will have to make sacrifices to pursue our dreams. But what else do we have to lose?” she says. “I kept walking straight, regardless of the eviction notices, the car being repossessed, the hard times, because I chose to invest in my dreams.”

Smith definitely wasn’t going back to Camden. Her name isn’t Michael Jackson — the only star who ever made going backwards look so good. The only route she could take was forward, toward that vision in her head, and toward her God who placed that dream there.

“My faith gave me strength to keep going, because regardless of what I was going through, I had this constant picture in my head and in my heart of success. And that’s why I quoted this several times, ‘Our dreams are not figments of our imaginations. Our God is showing a glimpse of our future.’ And I really do believe that. That our dreams and our passion are connected to our purpose and there [were] times where it [was] hard. But I kept going,” says Smith.

And she’s still going, on an uninterrupted upward trajectory toward that dream on the horizon.

BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING:

It’s not often one hears the entire theater break into spontaneous applause after the scene is over. During the media screening of Why Did I Get Married Too? in Midtown Manhattan, some folk hopped out of their seats cheering Smith’s Angela character the way you would when you see someone slam down a tomahawk dunk in someone’s face. She had people talking back to the screen and laughing over the dialogue of the other actors in the film.

This tall stock of energy called Smith has truly arrived — if she didn‘t already with her unforgettable performances in Daddy‘s Little Girls and the first Why Did I Get Married? But Smith is using her amplified platform to do more than live the Bentley lifestyle.

“I feel like [fame] gave me more of an opportunity to spread what I want to spread as a humanitarian, as a Christian, and as a person who just wants to do good within my society, you follow what I’m saying?” says the former non-believer whose life changed when she turned to God. “I feel like we’re given a platform for a reason. Hey, the more people that know me, the more people that may listen to what’s in my heart to share, whether to persevere or overcome. I thank God for the platform and the opportunity to give love.”

While she struggled to find that elusive thing called success, Smith’s love was able to marinate in her soul like a bottle of fine French wine. And now she serves it in liberal servings on a variety of fronts. She is the spokesperson for Procter & Gamble’s highly successful “My Black is Beautiful” national tour. She is able to dispense love in large doses through the Tasha Smith Acting Workshop which, she points out, is on a national tour to seek and train aspiring actors (www.tsaw.com). And Smith is working with the NFL to use her techniques to help empower players.

Smith offers much love through her performances, like in the chilling TV series “The Corner,” where she played heroin addict Veronica “Ronnie” Boise to show viewers the many perils of such a life.

By giving out so much love, she is also getting more in return. Right now she’s getting it from Tyler Perry, whom she adores for providing the role that launched her into our collective consciousness. But now love is coming from many other directions these days. And Smith is ready to embrace all the love.

“I’m so looking forward to my future. I’m looking forward to working with different directors and producers and just experience just new levels of life and creativity,” she says.