Anna Deavere Smith

Acting

Anna Deavere Smith

Born

1950-09-18 (76)

Place of birth

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

45 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress. Description above from the Wikipedia article Anna Deavere Smith, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit poster
8.0

In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

1999

Real Time with Bill Maher poster
6.0

Each week Bill Maher surrounds himself with a panel of guests which include politicians, actors, comedians, musicians and the like to discuss what's going on in the world.

Real Time with Bill Maher

2003

The West Wing poster
8.3

The West Wing provides a glimpse into presidential politics in the nation's capital as it tells the stories of the members of a fictional presidential administration. These interesting characters have humor and dedication that touches the heart while the politics that they discuss touch on everyday life.

The West Wing

1999

DC's Legends of Tomorrow poster
7.2

When heroes alone are not enough ... the world needs legends. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront an unstoppable threat — one in which not only is the planet at stake, but all of time itself. Can this ragtag team defeat an immortal threat unlike anything they have ever known?

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

2016

American Experience poster
6.5

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

American Experience

1988

BoJack Horseman poster
8.5

Meet the most beloved sitcom horse of the '90s , 20 years later. He's a curmudgeon with a heart of...not quite gold...but something like gold. Copper?

BoJack Horseman

2014

Film credits

2020s · 5 titles

Ghosted poster
6.9

Salt-of-the-earth Cole falls head over heels for enigmatic Sadie—but then makes the shocking discovery that she's a secret agent. Before they can decide on a second date, Cole and Sadie are swept away on an international adventure to save the world.

Ghosted

2023

Flora & Ulysses poster
6.5

When Flora rescues a squirrel she names Ulysses, she is amazed to discover he possesses unique superhero powers, which take them on an adventure of humorous complications that ultimately change Flora's life--and her outlook--forever.

Flora & Ulysses

2021

Here Today poster
6.9

Veteran comedy writer Charlie Berns, who is slowly but surely losing his grip on reality, befriends a talented young New York street singer Emma Payge. Together, they form an unlikely yet hilarious and touching friendship that kicks the generation gap aside and redefines the meaning of love and trust.

Here Today

2021

Pendulum poster
NR

A couple, journeys to a retreat in New Mexico seeking healing. Patrick grows skeptical of the retreat's leader as Abigail falls under her influence. They wonder if the group's practices offer genuine healing or conceal a terrifying truth.

Pendulum

2027

A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote poster
7.9

Taped at Los Angeles’ iconic Orpheum Theatre, this staged presentation of The West Wing’s “Hartsfield’s Landing” episode stars core cast members along with special guest stars. Act Breaks feature commentary from former First Lady Michelle Obama, President Bill Clinton and Lin-Manuel Miranda who share messages about the vital importance of making our voices heard in every election.

A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote

2020

2000s · 8 titles

Cry_Wolf poster
5.8

After a local woman is murdered, a group of teenage liars create a warning e-mail of a serial killer named “The Wolf”, coming on the next full moon. The teens describe each death method The Wolf uses, but when the described victims actually do start turning up dead, suddenly no one knows where the lies end and the truth begins.

Cry_Wolf

2005

Rachel Getting Married poster
6.3

A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

Rachel Getting Married

2008

The Kingdom poster
6.8

A team of U.S. government agents is sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.

The Kingdom

2007

The Manchurian Candidate poster
6.5

Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.

The Manchurian Candidate

2004

The Human Stain poster
6.0

Coleman Silk is a worldly and admired professor who loses his job after unwittingly making a racial slur. To clear his name, Silk writes a book about the events with his friend and colleague Nathan Zuckerman, who in the process discovers a dark secret Silk has hidden his whole life. All the while, Silk engages in an affair with Faunia Farley, a younger woman whose tormented past threatens to unravel the layers of deception Silk has constructed.

The Human Stain

2003

Rent poster
6.8

In New York City's gritty East Village, a group of bohemians strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

Rent

2005

Life Support poster
5.5

The true-life story of a mother who overcame an addiction to crack and became a positive role model and an AIDS activist in the black community.

Life Support

2007

Twilight: Los Angeles poster
7.5

Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.

Twilight: Los Angeles

2000

1990s · 5 titles

Series credits

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit poster
8.0

In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

1999

Real Time with Bill Maher poster
6.0

Each week Bill Maher surrounds himself with a panel of guests which include politicians, actors, comedians, musicians and the like to discuss what's going on in the world.

Real Time with Bill Maher

2003

The West Wing poster
8.3

The West Wing provides a glimpse into presidential politics in the nation's capital as it tells the stories of the members of a fictional presidential administration. These interesting characters have humor and dedication that touches the heart while the politics that they discuss touch on everyday life.

The West Wing

1999

DC's Legends of Tomorrow poster
7.2

When heroes alone are not enough ... the world needs legends. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront an unstoppable threat — one in which not only is the planet at stake, but all of time itself. Can this ragtag team defeat an immortal threat unlike anything they have ever known?

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

2016

American Experience poster
6.5

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

American Experience

1988

BoJack Horseman poster
8.5

Meet the most beloved sitcom horse of the '90s , 20 years later. He's a curmudgeon with a heart of...not quite gold...but something like gold. Copper?

BoJack Horseman

2014

The Practice poster
7.6

A provocative legal drama focused on young associates at a bare-bones Boston firm and their scrappy boss, Bobby Donnell. The show's forte is its storylines about “people who walk a moral tightrope.”

The Practice

1997

Madam Secretary poster
7.0

After years away from the CIA, Elizabeth McCord is pulled back into the political arena. The newly appointed Secretary of State is tough, fair, and smart, driving international diplomacy, wrangling office politics, and circumventing protocol as she negotiates global and domestic issues, both at the White House and at home.

Madam Secretary

2014

black-ish poster
7.1

A family man struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood.

black-ish

2014

American Playhouse poster
6.6

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.

American Playhouse

1982

Nurse Jackie poster
7.1

Every day is a matter of life and death in a hectic New York City hospital, but for Nurse Jackie that's the easiest part. Between chronic back pain that won't quit, and a personal life on the constant edge of collapse, it's going to take a white lie here, a bent rule there, and a handful of secret strategies to relieve the pain, and stay one step ahead of total disaster.

Nurse Jackie

2009

Finding Your Roots poster
6.5

Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.

Finding Your Roots

2012

Extrapolations poster
6.1

Eight interconnected stories told over 33 years explore how our planet’s changing climate will affect family, work, faith—and survival.

Extrapolations

2023

For the People poster
7.2

Brand new lawyers work for both the defense and the prosecution as they handle the most high profile and high stakes cases in the country – all as their personal lives intersect.

For the People

2018

StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson poster
6.7

Host Neil deGrasse Tyson brings together celebrities, scientists and comedians to explore a variety of cosmic topics and collide pop culture with science in a way that late-night television has never seen before. Weekly topics range from popular science fiction, space travel, extraterrestrial life, the Big Bang, to the future of Earth and the environment. Tyson is an astrophysicist with a gifted ability to connect with everyone, inspiring us all to to "keep looking up."

StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson

2015

Inventing Anna poster
6.8

Audacious entrepreneur or con artist? A journalist chases down the story of Anna Delvey, who convinced New York's elite she was a German heiress.

Inventing Anna

2022

Presidio Med poster
8.0

Presidio Med is an American medical drama that aired on CBS from September 2002, to January 2003. The series centers on a San Francisco hospital. It was created by John Wells and Lydia Woodward, who also created ER.

Presidio Med

2002

Masterclass poster
NR

MasterClass is a documentary television series airing on HBO. Each half-hour episode documents the experience of a small group of young artists working with a famous mentor. The series premiered on HBO on April 18, 2010 with opera star Plácido Domingo working with three aspiring young singers. The students in the program are chosen from participants in the Miami-based organization, YoungArts, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which supports emerging artists. The series is produced and directed by Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon of the Simon & Goodman Picture Company. The Executive Producer is Lin Arison. In July 2011 the series was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Nonfiction, Reality or Reality-Competition Program in 2011.

Masterclass

2010

Behind the camera

Notes from the Field poster
6.3

A dramatization of the accounts of the students, parents, teachers and administrators caught in America’s school-to-prison pipeline, which pushes underprivileged, minority youth out of the classroom and into incarceration.

Notes from the Field

2018

Fires in the Mirror poster
10.0

Anna Deveare Smith plays over 30 characters in a re-creation of the racial conflict that erupted in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Fires in the Mirror

1993

Twilight: Los Angeles poster
7.5

Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.

Twilight: Los Angeles

2000

Twilight: Los Angeles poster
7.5

Anna Deavere Smith transforms herself into scores of individuals -- using only their words and duplicating their speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, and attitudes -- in a mosaic set in the violent aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King trial and verdict. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. In her signature performance style, Smith embodies and gives voice to scores of real-life "characters" -- from LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member, from Korean store owners to a white juror, from Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- black, white, Asian, Latino. Because she is able to speak the words and convey the deeply held sentiments of so many different people, Smith enables her audience members to hear what they might otherwise discount.

Twilight: Los Angeles

2000