Latest news with #CallMeIzzy
Newsweek
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
There's No Stopping Jean Smart: 'It's Very Hard to Say No'
When Jean Smart first read the play Call Me Izzy, she had one response. "I just had to do it." Smart is taking a break from winning multiple Emmys for her portrayal of Deborah Vance on Hacks to tackle the one-person Broadway show about Isabelle Scutley, a Southern woman trapped in an abusive marriage who, despite it all, finds her voice through writing and humor. Smart spoke with Newsweek exclusively about what inspired her to take on this endeavor, her inspiration for the character, and how she keeps up the stamina. "Check with me in a few weeks," Smart jokes when asked about how she does it. "I've relaxed into it, I feel very confident about the words, all 75 pages. So that's a load off my mind. The hardest part, I suppose, even just physically and vocally, is that I'm voicing all the other characters." Jean Smart Jean Smart Matthias Clamer/Courtesy of Max While she still has "awful, really awful," stage fright, she finds that channeling it improves the show. "Sometimes, when you're feeling more vulnerable, you actually give a better performance, because you're just in tune with all your feelings. Everything's kind of raw near the surface. I've noticed times when I've done the show that when I haven't been feeling particularly well physically, that I gave what I thought was a better performance." After her 12-week Broadway limited engagement ends in mid-August, Smart will return for the fifth season of Hacks on HBO Max. The question on everyone's mind is will it be the comedy's last season? Jean Smart commands the stage in Call Me Izzy, delivering a fierce and layered performance as a writer reckoning with memory, identity, and survival. Jean Smart commands the stage in Call Me Izzy, delivering a fierce and layered performance as a writer reckoning with memory, identity, and survival. Emilio Madrid/P Three Productions "Jen [Statsky] and Paul [W. Downs] and Lucia [Aniello, Hacks creators] have said from the very beginning that this is a five-story arc, and they've had it all in their heads for years, and they know what they want to do. I trust them implicitly, and I think five will feel right." With the acclaim Smart has received in recent years, there are seemingly only a few people who want her to slow down: her kids. "They said, 'Mom, you can occasionally say no.' I said, I understand. But when you wanted certain things your whole life and worked toward them your whole life, when they finally come along, it's very hard to say no." This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for space and clarity. At this point, you can do anything, even nothing. In the off season of Hacks, you could easily take a break, be on a beach somewhere, but instead you chose to do this one-woman play. So what is it about Call Me Izzy that made you not want to be on a beach somewhere? I just fell in love with this piece. I fell in love with the writing. I fell in love with the character. I think they're both unique and extraordinarily well done and interesting. And I just had to do it. It's taken two years since they first sent it to me to finally be able to work it into my schedule. And I'm so glad I did, because it's just been a highlight, an absolute highlight of my of my career. What is it about this character that you responded to? Do you relate to her? I guess her optimism, although I don't quite have as much as I used to, in general. I've always been a very optimistic person. I mean, it's not like she's Pollyanna, but she's able to find joy and humor in the darkest of times. And there's something almost childlike about her that I just absolutely love. I love doing the parts of the play that take place when she's a kid. I don't know why. I'd never read anybody like her. I thought the poetry was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't believe that Jamie wrote all that. I don't know why not. People are surprised sometimes when they find out the play was written by a man, but I'm not surprised, knowing him. Just everything about it I thought was so unique and so beautifully done, and the humor, I don't think I've ever been in a play where I've experienced such moments of absolute stillness with an audience, and then just huge, huge laughs. It's just been very, very, very special. With piercing honesty and raw emotion, Jean Smart delivers a powerful monologue in Call Me Izzy, a new play written by Jamie Wax and directed by Sarna Lapine. With piercing honesty and raw emotion, Jean Smart delivers a powerful monologue in Call Me Izzy, a new play written by Jamie Wax and directed by Sarna Lapine. Marc J. Franklin/P Three Productions A character like Izzy is rare not just on Broadway, but in entertainment in general. Were there any women in your life that you drew inspiration from? I didn't think of it at the time, but when I think back now, my mother was very, very smart. Was an avid—if not rabid—reader, raised four kids, was college educated, but because she always had a little one at home, she just never really, she didn't have the confidence to step out into the world. And she wanted to study architecture. She said, "When I went to college, good girls majored in home economics. They didn't major in architecture. So I majored in home economics." And it's a shame, because she would have been an amazing architect. She loved to draw, she loved to do clay, she loved to write, but she didn't really have the time. And certainly, though, she had a very supportive husband—fortunately for her—but she had four kids and not a lot of money. To do a one-woman play seems daunting. You don't have anybody to rely on. It's just you. Where do you find the stamina to do this eight times a week? Well, check with me in a few weeks. Fortunately, it's not a real long show. It's 90 minutes. The hardest part, the most stressful part, by far, was the weeks of previews and getting through opening. Because I was just a wreck thinking that I was going to forget a line and I was going to freeze. And to me, that would have been, death. So that was a very stressful period. Now that I've relaxed into it, I feel very confident about the words, all 75 pages. So that's a load off my mind. The hardest part, I suppose, even just physically and vocally, is that I'm voicing all the other characters, and I didn't really think about it at first, but the energy that takes, instead of doing a scene with another person, and while they're talking, you're listening and breathing, and you're reacting and maybe even taking a sip of something. So I can't be reacting and thinking. And it's a very interesting dynamic. It takes a lot of energy. Did you ever have stage fright at all? Do you still have that? Oh, awful. Really awful. Not now, but yeah, the first few weeks, because it had been so long since I had done a play. And as I said, because it's 75 pages long, and I didn't know if I still had the bandwidth up here [in my head], the thought of going up and just standing in front of 1,000 people and just going, "I don't know what comes next." Because it actually happened in a preview. I had to leave the stage three times. How did you recover from that? I don't know if I've still ever recovered from that one night. Thank God it was a preview, so it's an excuse. But I just left, looked at the script and just came back out and just kept going. I also have to say, the fact that the play is at Studio 54 would probably make your Hacks character Deborah Vance very proud. You know Deborah was there. She had to have at least swung by one time in some leopard print. I think that's why the carpet up there is leopard print. Deborah redid the lobby. Jean Smart as Deborah Vance in Hacks delivers a powerhouse performance in 'A Slippery Slope,' Season 4's emotional high point. Facing a career-defining ultimatum, Smart balances biting humor with quiet devastation in a farewell monologue... Jean Smart as Deborah Vance in Hacks delivers a powerhouse performance in 'A Slippery Slope,' Season 4's emotional high point. Facing a career-defining ultimatum, Smart balances biting humor with quiet devastation in a farewell monologue that showcases her unrivaled command of tone and timing. More Courtesy of Max So maybe it being at Studio 54 could be something you use if you ever forget a line. But the thing is, though, the terror is so debilitating, ice cold, that you can't think of anything. I mean, your brain is wiped clean. You don't know the name of the play, the plot. Now, if I get to a point where I just think, or I skip over a line, I know this show so well, now I can kind of go back and pick it up and keep the story going and get all the pertinent information in. But in the first three weeks, if there was a moment of hesitation, I didn't know it was coming next, it was full-blown, like ice-cold panic. Totally. For me it goes straight to my throat. It closes up. Also to your ear and your body sends that shot of adrenaline through you that is like 50,000 volts of caffeine or something, and it's just—I've only forgotten once on stage, besides this preview one time, 20-plus years ago. I was doing a play off-Broadway in New York, and I was unfortunately having a miscarriage. And I just, I was in the middle of a speech, and that was it. I just stopped. And I was on stage with another actor, but I was able to somehow keep my cool. I don't know why. And I remembered that the kitchen was off stage. The kitchen was off stage left, and my character always had a drink in her hand. So I just said, "I'm going to go freshen up my drink. I'll be right back." And that's where the stage manager sits on his computer, or on the script. He's got the script open to the scene and he's there. So I thought, I'll just saunter over to the kitchen, look at the script and go back and just keep going. So I go over there and the stage manager was not anywhere near that scene. He was playing solitaire on his laptop. [laughs] We both went into heart failure, and it felt like 20 minutes, but we finally found the scene. I bet he never made that mistake again. Well, thank God for the other actor. He didn't have to make up any lines because he was bound and gagged and tied to a chair. What show was this? It was called Fit to be Tied by Nicky Silver, the infamous, wonderful Nicky Silver. But that was, knock wood, until a few weeks ago, the only time I'd ever forgotten a line. When you are dealing with that stress, or even stuff in your own life, how do you get in the right headspace for the performance when you, personally, might not be in the right headspace? You just have to concentrate. And sometimes, unfortunately, our other state of mind kind of feeds into whatever it is we're doing. And sometimes, when you're feeling more vulnerable, you actually give a better performance, because you're just in tune with all your feelings. Everything's kind of raw near the surface. I've noticed times when I've done the show that when I haven't been feeling particularly well physically, that I gave what I thought was a better performance. But that might just be my imagination. So I have to ask you about Hacks. You and the creative team have all mentioned recently that you think season five might be the last season. When do you know creatively it's time to end something so popular? Well, I've only been in one other long-running series, so it's kind of hard to say. And when I left Designing Women, I had just become a mom, so other things that were taking my priority. I mean, I know that Jen [Statsky] and Paul [W. Downs] and Lucia [Aniello, Hacks creators] have said from the very beginning that this is a five-story arc, and they've had it all in their heads for years, and they know what they want to do. I trust them implicitly, and I think five will feel right. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder soak up the sun as Deborah and Ava in Hacks. Season 4 finds the duo poolside in Singapore – cocktails in hand, careers in flux – navigating fame, ambition, and... Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder soak up the sun as Deborah and Ava in Hacks. Season 4 finds the duo poolside in Singapore – cocktails in hand, careers in flux – navigating fame, ambition, and the ever-complicated bond between mentor and protégé. More Courtesy of Max And it must feel good to leave something behind that you can be so proud of and know that it's exactly the story you want to tell. Not extended in any way because of pressure due to its popularity. It's so good, and I'm so proud of it, and it's been such a joy. And I haven't asked what they have in mind for next year. I don't want to know. I like to be surprised. But I really am curious. I mean, I don't know how much longer I cannot ask. So much of the press around you for these past couple of years has been about your age and the success you've had later on in your career. Do you feel like maybe they should have been paying attention 20 years ago? There have been moments where I've thought, "Gosh, this would have been nice 20 years ago." When I could have taken a little more advantage of it. I mean, there's certain roles I can't play now, just because of my age, which is sad, but I don't feel like I'm a different actor than I was 20 years ago. So, I don't know. You'd have to ask casting directors why I wasn't cast in these kinds of things 20 years ago. I don't know, but I'm certainly not bitter. I am incredibly grateful, and I'm continually astonished at the opportunities that keep being placed in front of me. It's continually amazing. The problem is, I was trying to explain to my kids, because they said, "Mom, you can occasionally say no." And I said, I understand. But when you wanted certain things your whole life and worked toward them your whole life, when they finally come along, it's very hard to say no. After Designing Women, you did a number of character roles that were amazing, but mostly comedic. Was there a moment or project that stands out to you when people started to pay attention to you in a different way? When I did 24 [playing First Lady Martha Logan]. That's what I was going to say. Did it open up other opportunities for you? I think, to a certain extent, yes. And then I did Fargo [as crime family matriarch Floyd Gerhardt], which got a lot of acclaim, and then it was just crickets. Really just crickets. Not a job, not an offer, not a meeting. Wow. That surprises me. Why do you think that is? I don't know. This is my personal opinion: I think part of it was because the way I looked was so kind of jarring, and I looked much older, and it was suddenly like, "Whoa. What category is she in now? I don't know what to do with her." That's so upsetting to hear, because it feels like that should have opened up even more doors. No, I didn't work for a while. [It] was the only time where I didn't really work. What were the projects that started that trend towards Hacks? I did Legion. And then I did Watchmen, and then I did Mare of Easttown. So those were all fabulous projects, and then basically Hacks. Considering the success you've had recently, do you think things are changing on television for the portrayals of women, of all types, of all eras? I think so. As I've said before, and this isn't making excuses for the industry or sexism or anything, but I mean, one of the reasons there have always been 20 roles for a man, for every one role for a woman, is because most stories were about men, because historically, men were the ones who went out into the world and did stuff. So, of course, most stories were about men, and that gradually began to change as women stepped into the workforce and then we started to discover really extraordinary women, because we discovered women in history who were adventurers and explorers and warriors and writers and artists, and who actually were even more interesting than their male counterparts because they were bucking a system where it was almost all male. So pretty soon, people started realizing that stories about women were at least as interesting about stories about men. So it has been gradually opening up and opening up and opening up. It's kind of two steps forward, one step back. I mean, there will always be the idea that if you're young, certainly that you have to be sexually desirable to be watchable. Again, that's getting a little healthier, although the style now, what's in style now, the look of that sort of Kardashian look, your dress up to your ass and eyelashes out to here, and boobs out to there, and heels this high, and it's like, where else [is there] to go? [laughs]
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gayle King Reveals Her 2 Picks to Be Named PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive: ‘They're Really Good Human Beings' (Exclusive)
Gayle King revealed her two picks to be named PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the opening night of Call Me Izzy on Broadway in New York City on Thursday, June 12 She described both of her picks as "really good human beings" The CBS News journalists also said "there are lots [of worthy men] to choose from" for the annual titleGayle King is singling out two actors she believes deserve to wear the PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive crown. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the opening night of Call Me Izzy on Broadway in New York City on Thursday, June 12, the CBS News journalist said that while "there are lots [of worthy men] to choose from," she'd love to see a certain Bridgerton leading man tapped for the honor. "I wouldn't be mad if Regé-Jean Page got it. I wouldn't be mad," she says, referring to the 37-year-old British actor, who rose to fame playing love interest Simon, the Duke of Hastings, in season 1 of the Netflix period drama. King also tossed out another name: Brandon Sklenar, star of It Ends with Us, 1923 and more. "Brandon Sklenar, also nice," she says of the 34-year-old actor. "Because I've met them, and in addition to looking good, I think they're really good human beings," she continues of both actors. "That to me matters more than anything, does more than anything. Because good looks come and go, but your character and a big heart doesn't go." King isn't the first celebrity to share her votes for the SMA title. In January, Today co-host Savannah Guthrie asked Will Ferrell and his You're Cordially Invited costar Reese Witherspoon about the Elf star potentially campaigning for the annual honor. "Again. I mean, I missed out last year," Ferrell, 57, joked. Asked why she believes Ferrell would make a good cover star, Witherspoon, 49, replied, " 'Cause I mean, who else would it be? I can't think of anybody!" Also in January, Matthew McConaughey put in a little plug for fellow actor Anthony Hopkins. At the time, the Interstellar star shared a carousel of photos on Instagram of himself posing with various celebrity friends at the 2025 Joy Awards in Saudi Arabia. He captioned a shot of himself and Hopkins, 87: "It's past time this Sir is Peoples Sexiest Man Alive." Last year's SMA title was bestowed on John Krasinski. As the Office alum prepares to pass the torch to the 2025 honoree later this year, he recently shared some advice for his successor. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "Buckle up. It is a hard crown to wear, but you'll be all right. Just stay focused. Take a deep breath, you'll get through it," Krasinski, 45, told PEOPLE at the May 19 premiere of Apple TV+'s Fountain of Youth in New York City. Read the original article on People
Daily Mail
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Brooke Shields rocks youthful look at Call Me Izzy Broadway opening after calling Meghan Markle 'too precious'
Brooke Shields showed off a casual-cool look that made her look years younger than her age when she made a splash at the opening night of the Broadway play Call Me Izzy. The 60-year-old actress showed off her impressively toned arms in a button-up best as she joined other stars on the red carpet in New York City on Thursday. Brooke stepped out just days after she admitted to criticizing Meghan Markle for being 'too precious' during a live event in front of thousands of people last year. exclusively reported earlier this week that King Charles ' goddaughter India Hicks had removed a clip of Brooke speaking about the surprising critique on her personal website. For her Broadway attire, she paired her black vest with a flared pair of high-waisted dark-wash jeans. The sleek pants, which emphasized her trim figure, were paired with modest black heels decorated with gold eyelets. Brooke completed her low-key ensemble with her lustrous brunette hair, which she wore in thick waves draped over her shoulders. She was attending the one-woman drama Call Me Izzy (its title is an allusion to Moby Dick's opening line, 'Call me Ishmael.'), which stars Jean Smart. The Hacks actress plays a downtrodden housewife in Louisiana who cultivates a secret life of the mind by writing poetry, which she has to keep secret from her abusive husband, whom she also plays, in addition to other supporting characters. Initial reviews were mixed on the play and its script, but Jean's performance received widespread acclaim. Brooke has been a vocal fan of Jean's hit HBO series Hacks, which recently wrapped up its fourth season and has been renewed for a fifth. Last year, she told that she loved the show and Jean 'so much,' and she claimed its other lead Hannah Einbinder had pledged to try to get the show's writers room to come up with a guest part for her. When Hannah appeared on the Today Show later, she sounded shocked that Brooke would share their conversation. 'Oh, my God! Wait, that's so — wow, Brooke Shields that's crazy,' she said, before vowing to keep her promise to find a way to get the veteran actress on her show. The sleek pants, which emphasized her trim figure, were paired with modest black heels decorated with gold eyelets. Brooke completed her low-key ensemble with her lustrous brunette hair, which she wore in thick waves draped over her shoulders Brooke recently caused a scandal when she admitted that she shut down Meghan Markle onstage last year. The two were part of a panel discussing International Women's Day at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, when the former Suits star, 43, began answering a question that Brooke thought turned overly serious. 'Katie asks the first question to Meghan and talks about how at a young age, she was already advocating for women, etcetera, etcetera,' Brooke explained. '[Meghan] starts telling a story about how when she was 11... And she keeps saying, well, when I was 11, I saw this commercial and they were talking about washing dishes and only soap for washing dishes was for women. 'And she said, "I didn't think only women wash dishes. It wasn't fair. So I wrote to the company. And when I was 11, I wrote my first letter and when I was 11..." and she kept saying she was 11! She wrote to the company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial.' At that point, Brooke said, she couldn't resist breaking the tension in the room and the earnestness of Meghan's response. 'I go, "Excuse me, I'm so sorry. I've got to interrupt you there for one minute." 'I was trying not to be rude, but I wanted to be funny because it was so serious. '"I just want to give everybody here a context as to how we're different,"' Brooke told the audience. 'I said, "Well, when I was 11, I was playing a prostitute." 'The place went insane. And then luckily, it was more relaxed after that.' The comment was a reference to Brooke's breakout role as a child star in the controversial 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which she played a child sex worker, a role that sparked debate at the time and has remained the subject of intense scrutiny in the decades since. In Austin, the moment broke the ice, as the crowd broke out into laughter. 'I was like, oh, I hope she doesn't think I'm rude. I'm not being rude,' Brooke added. India — daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, and the late interior designer David Hicks, agreed that lightening the serious mood Meghan created was the right thing to do. 'I think it's genius,' she said. Reflecting on the exchange, Brooke added: 'It was just too precious. And I was like, they're not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious.' Despite the crowd's response, Brooke acknowledged that the moment might not have gone down quite so well with Meghan herself. 'This was in front of [thousands of people]. I mean, it was crazy,' she said. 'And then afterwards, she was kind of like, oh, okay. And I was like, let's just have some fun with it.' Brooke added: 'I don't know if you'll have to cut this out.' After the episode came both Brooke and India were accused of being 'racist Karens' and 'b*****s' on X (formerly Twitter) due to the comments.
Wall Street Journal
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Call Me Izzy' Review: A Woman Shows Her Smarts on Broadway
New York Jean Smart makes a welcome, and warmly welcomed, return to Broadway after an absence of a quarter-century in 'Call Me Izzy,' a solo show by Jamie Wax about a woman trying to break free from an abusive marriage. Ms. Smart has reached a later-career peak recently, winning three Emmy Awards for her performance as a down-and-out comic rampaging on the comeback trail in 'Hacks,' in which she has given one of the most superlative performances of the streaming-television era.
Chicago Tribune
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘Call Me Izzy' on Broadway stars Jean Smart as a working-class woman with dreams
NEW YORK — Jean Smart hasn't been on Broadway for 25 years. The last time, she played a glittering, glamorous and ruthless actress in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 'The Man Who Came to Dinner,' a powerful siren who enjoyed breaking up marriages for sport. This time, she's an abused woman from small-town Louisiana who makes her first appearance on stage in the bathroom of a mobile home in a Louisiana trailer park. It's likely quite the jolt for fans of a much-awarded actress familiar for her work on 'Hacks,' 'Designing Women' and 'Mare of Easttown,' a contrast intensified by playwright Jamie Wax's 'Call Me Izzy' opening in the slipstream of the Tony Awards. As the Broadway glitterati walked by Studio 54 over these last few nights, Smart was inside, slipping disinfectant into a toilet bowl for her bemused fans. 'My husband, Fred, he hates the blue cleaner I put into the toilet almost as much as he hates my writing,' Smart's titular character says to the audience at the start of 'Call Me Izzy,' as she flushes and marvels at the various shades of swirling azure. Uh oh, you'll surely think, right off the bat. This Izzy sounds like a working-class writer trapped in a marriage with an oafish, one-syllable Southern man who won't understand such matters as artistic freedom, artistic expression, and the desire to escape said trailer park for a more examined life. The kind of scared little dude who might well resort to violence to keep his wife in line. You would of course be right. That's exactly the scenario in 'Call Me Izzy,' a solo show about the power of poetry and its ability to lift working-class writers out of their difficult lives, but only if they can find room to express themselves, avoid those who would block their progress and align themselves with the kind of mentor who will take an interest. For those of us who've been around a while, 'Call Me Izzy' starts to recall the plot of Willy Russell's 'Shirley Valentine,' another play about the power of humanistic education, albeit set in Liverpool in the U.K. rather than Mansfield, Louisiana. In both plays, the lovable central character finds herself in the thrall of a charismatic teacher who clearly represents a means of escape from those with no understanding, but might also just be a distraction from what is typically venerated in plays like this, which is finding your own way with words and ideas. Those are noble sentiments and there are only so many stories under the sun. Moreover, stories about white, working-class characters from Louisiana are as rare on Broadway as dramas about blue-collar poets; I'd venture that no toilet has ever played so prominent a role at Studio 54, at least not since that venue's days as a nightclub. All that is to say 'Call Me Izzy' is not a total bust, especially given Smart's formidable acting chops. Monologic shows like this with no explicit person being addressed require deeply conversational kinds of performance, as if the audiences were all your best friend who just happens to be outside the bathroom door. Smart is skilled and experienced enough to forge such a bond. I believed her entirely as a woman from small-town Louisiana capable of both great stoicism (often a feature of those in abusive relationships) and profound artistic yearning. Her performance is somewhat under-scaled and under-vocalized for so large a Broadway house (and why are we here in so huge a space, one wonders), but then it has been 20 years and the deeply honest Smart is clearly immersed in her character, with nary a note of condescension. But you still always know where 'Call Me Izzy' is ultimately going, even if the piece is a tad confusing as to its chronology; that's another frequent risk with long monologues recounting a story that may have happened in the past, may still be happening, may go wrong in the future. The audience needs more signposts from a director, and heftier moment-by-moment tension, than director Sarna Lapine here provides us. 'Call Me Izzy' is simply one character's point of view and you can't help contrast it with the complexity of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' which uses one live actress to create an entire Victorian world. In the case of 'Izzy,' one might as well be reading the narrative on the page. Except of course for the chance to see Smart, which is why most people will be there. The biggest challenge she faces here is to overcome the fundamental familiarity of a moralistic script that gives us a clearly sympathetic character battling against a brute we never see and wants us to be surprised by the outcome. Wax is so in love with his central character, he finds it hard to give her anything truly substantial to fight against as she rolls down her personal runway. Smart does her considerable best to find it for him, but she didn't write the play.
