Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor.

Quotes

 * My life's work has been to go around America with a tape recorder trying to become America word for word. And I've met a lot of people who I disagree with. I've met a lot of people who you would think I would disagree with. But I have to say it's enriched my sense of being an American to reach out to people who are very, very different from me…
 * On connecting with people with opposing viewpoints in “Anna Deavere Smith Brings One-Woman Play 'Notes From The Field' To HBO” in NPR (2018 Mar 4)


 * I do believe that character is a process, that truth is a process, and I am not interested in winning and losing…
 * On character building in “Wearing the Words: An Interview with Anna Deavere Smith” in the Buddhist Review (Fall 1994)
 * …White racism is about people who don’t feel so bad about fixed things. But white racism is a fixed thing, and it is perpetuated because of fixedness. Anything that we can do that causes people to desire movement more than fixedness is going to disrupt racism…
 * On racism and the concept of fixedness in “Wearing the Words: An Interview with Anna Deavere Smith” in the Buddhist Review (Fall 1994)


 * The words are verbatim. The words are exactly what the people said. When I was a girl, my grandfather said, “If you say a word often enough, it becomes you,” and that’s really my technique. I really believe that if I learn exactly what somebody said, that I will find myself, as an actor, in a similar state of mind as them. I’ll never know what they’re really thinking, but I’ll have some of their feelings…
 * On trying to capture the words of her interviewees to produce an accurate play in “The Power of Words: A Conversation with Anna Deavere Smith” in LA Screenwriter