Long before she battled monsters both human and otherworldly on HBO's 'Lovecraft Country,' the Emmy nominee was getting laughs from a studio audience as little Denise Frazer on the ABC series.
The Hollywood Reporter
“I remember the feeling of performing in front of a live audience, and being able to feed off of them,” Smollett says. “There [was] that action-reaction cycle that happens when you are in front of a live audience, and ‘Oh, if I do this, this makes them laugh.’ It was such great training for me because it really gave me confidence and freedom.” She vividly recalls shooting her first scene, in which she offers Michelle Tanner a sandwich as a gesture of friendship.
That moment might not have come if her mother, Janet, hadn’t pushed for her to audition for the role, which was originally written for a white girl. Perhaps that’s why Smollett is still recognized now from her first TV gig. “There’s a generation of young girls, women of color, who have repeatedly expressed to me [that they] didn’t see many young brown girls, young Black girls on TV during that time.
This story first appeared in a August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine,