J. Smith-Cameron

Smith-Cameron was born Jean Isabel Smith in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of architect Richard Sharpe Smith. She was raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and attended Florida State University for one year, where she was enrolled in the School of Theatre. There she met film director Victor Nuñez, who cast her as a lead in his film Gal Young 'Un (1979)

She added a family name, Cameron, when told by the Actors' Equity Association that there was already a J. Smith and there was a rule that two actors cannot have the same professional name. She made her Broadway debut in August 1982 when she replaced Mia Dillon as "Babe Botrelle" in Crimes of the Heart. She appeared in the original Broadway cast of Lend Me a Tenor as "Maggie" in 1989. The cast of that play won an Outer Critics Circle Award, Special Awards. She appeared in the Broadway production of Our Country's Good in 1991.

Additional Broadway credits include Night Must Fall (1999), Tartuffe (2002), and After the Night and the Music (2005).

She has appeared in many Off-Broadway plays, including at the Public Theater, the Second Stage Theatre, and Playwrights Horizons. She appeared in the Paul Rudnick play The Naked Truth Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in 1994. She received a Drama Desk Award nomination for this production.

In November 1999 through April 2000 she appeared in Fuddy Meers as Claire at New York City Center, Stage II, for which she received a nomination for the Outer Critics Circle Award as Outstanding Actress in a Play. In March through June 2004 she appeared in the Manhattan Theatre Club Off-Broadway production of Sarah, Sarah. In November through December 2009 she appeared Off-Broadway at the Acorn Theatre in her husband's (Kenneth Lonergan) play, The Starry Messenger. In October 2013 to December 2013 she starred in the Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theater production of Juno and the Paycock as Juno Boyle. The New York Times reviewer wrote: "In one of the finest performances of her distinguished career on the New York stage, Ms. Smith-Cameron imbues her Juno with a steely pragmatism, but more important an emotional pliancy that makes her more prepared than the rest of her clan to beat back the onslaughts of ill fortune that beset them."

She won an Obie Award for the Off-Broadway Drama Department production As Bees in Honey Drown (1997), which also earned her a Drama Desk nomination and Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, Outstanding Actress In A Play. Additional nominations include the Drama Desk Award for Sarah, Sarah (2004) and the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in the play Our Country's Good.

Smith-Cameron is married to playwright, screenwriter and director Kenneth Lonergan. They have one daughter, Nellie. They met when Lonergan saw Smith-Cameron in a play and asked if she would be interested in doing a workshop of one of his plays.

• 84 Charing Cross Road (1986)
• Jeffrey (1995)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
• Sabrina (1995)
• Harriet the Spy (1996)
• The First Wives Club (1996)
• In & Out (1997)
• The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
• You Can Count on Me (2000)
• Margaret (2011)
• Christine (2016)
• No Pay, Nudity (2016)

Sources: The New York Times

• Rectify (2013–2016)
• The Good Wife (Samara Steel, 2015)
• True Blood (2010–2011)
• The Equalizer (1988 and 1989)
• Guiding Light (Nancy Ferris, 1984–1985)
• The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1990–1991)
• Homicide: Life on the Street
• Spin City
• Law & Order (1998, 2001, 2003)
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001, 2007)