Three decades after she first charmed audiences in '90s sitcoms, the actor opens up to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL about facing off with Taron Egerton in Apple TV+&rsquo;s twisted new crime drama.

Spoilers ahead for Smoke.&nbsp;
With only two episodes remaining, Smoke continues to turn up the heat. And if the Apple TV+ series has taught us anything so far, it&rsquo;s that we should expect the tension to come to a full-on boil. Inspired by the crimes of arsonist John Leonard Orr, the show first threw viewers for a loop by shifting its tone early on. What initially appeared to be a more traditional police procedural quickly morphed into a deeply unsettling character study centered on its two leads: Michelle Calderone, an ex-Marine turned detective portrayed by Jurnee Smollett, and Dave Gudsen, an arson investigator played by Taron Egerton. Since then, there&rsquo;s been one series-altering twist after another, with the drama building towards one final showdown between Michelle and Dave&mdash;who, we learned in Episode 2, is actually one of the arsonists that law enforcement has been hunting all along.
Part of what makes the subversive series such a fascinating watch is, of course, the chemistry between Smollett and Egerton as they go head to head. Turns out, the actors&rsquo; onscreen dynamic is the only one they&rsquo;ve ever known. &ldquo;I didn't actually meet Taron until the table read,&rdquo; Smollett, 38, tells L&rsquo;OFFICIEL. &ldquo;But I wasn't meeting Taron, and he wasn't meeting Jurnee; I met Dave, and Dave met Michelle.&rdquo; From then on, &ldquo;it was effortless and natural,&rdquo; says Smollett. &ldquo;We just slid into a groove with each other, and that's the kind of thing you can't plan&mdash;it&rsquo;s there, or it isn't. We&rsquo;ve both been in the game for so long that we know how to find chemistry with someone, and he&rsquo;s an awesome scene partner. Very generous, and all about the work.&rdquo;

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

The work itself was intense, both emotionally and physically. And while some actors might make a concerted effort to leave such heavy material behind on set, Smollett chose to immerse herself in the role as much as possible. &ldquo;While I'm in it, I do not consciously try to separate myself from it,&rdquo; she says of her acting approach. &ldquo;Yes, it shows up in my dreams. Yes, it affects me. My late, great friend and brother [Lovecraft Country co-star] Michael K. Williams and I talked a lot about the fact that the body doesn't know that [what&rsquo;s being acted out in a scene] is not real; the mind may, but the body is still experiencing it. So I lean into it, and I embrace it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Still, that doesn&rsquo;t mean Smollett&mdash;who landed her first big roles on Full House and Hangin&rsquo; with Mr. Cooper in the early 1990s&mdash;will be going fully Method anytime soon. &ldquo;I used to have a different approach, but there are things about my life now that have changed my process,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Being a mom means that I don't really have the luxury of staying in it all the time. You can&rsquo;t, when you have a little 8-year-old boy going, Mommy, come watch the Warriors game with me, or, let's go outside and play baseball!&rdquo; To meet both personal and professional demands, Smollett&mdash;who shares son Hunter with ex-husband Josiah Bell&mdash;has found a way to enjoy family activities without letting the all-encompassing darkness of, say, an arson-fueled series take over. &ldquo;I have to be more efficient and do a lot of prep work so that I can access [my character&rsquo;s emotions] pretty quickly, but I don't intentionally try to be in it or out,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I just think of the next task to do. I stay very present.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Ahead, she opens up to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL about training to play a former Marine, whether she&rsquo;d want her son to go into acting, and why she still feels energized by&mdash;and not jaded about&mdash;Hollywood.

Photo by Sela Shiloni, courtesy of Jurnee Smollett.

L&rsquo;OFFICIEL: What first drew you to your role in Smoke?
JURNEE SMOLLETT: A number of things, including being a fan of [series creator] Dennis Lehane&rsquo;s work. Blackbird was one of my favorite limited series in recent history, and I&rsquo;m a fan of his novels Shutter Island and Mystic River. Reading his scripts, and seeing how he intended to make Michelle so complex, and rich, and flawed&mdash;it's what you look for in a role, you know? Someone who's a walking contradiction: She works in law enforcement, and yet her brother&rsquo;s engaged in criminal activity. She's around criminals. And one of the things Dennis said to me early on was, Jurnee, we all say we want to be happy and yet, why are we drawn to the very things that will destroy us? That was really my entry point into her: this pattern of creation and destruction. When you meet her, she is destroying her home in order to rebuild it. And there are ways that that manifests in her life, in her relationships, in her work. She really is dancing with fire.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: Throughout the season, Michelle continues to be an enigma of sorts. How did you prepare for a role where you can&rsquo;t give too much about your character away up front?&nbsp;
JS: Michelle has a mask&mdash;a guard, an armor&mdash;because she doesn't really let a lot of people in. So my job was just to do as much preparation and research as I could: interviewing experts, writing a biography about her. Doing all that work that you do in order to fill yourself up with the essence and the soul of the character, to find the eyes of the character and the way she sees the world. How does she attach to people, or detach? Why is she such a workaholic? Why is she such a loner? [Leading acting teacher Sanford] Meisner said the most important question an actor can ask is, Why? So asking all the whys&mdash;and trying to answer those&mdash;was the work I had to do.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: This isn't your first time taking on a character in law enforcement, having portrayed an FBI agent in the 2024 film The Order. Did any other projects inspire your performance this time?
JS: I went back and watched a lot of things&mdash;not to imitate or copy, but just to see what works and doesn't work. I watched Silence of the Lambs. I watched Prime Suspect, the Helen Mirren show. I was also feeding myself with art: visual art, music, literature, poems. I look at [a role] like it's a well: You have to fill it up so that you can begin to think like the character. You&rsquo;ve got to know all the details of her life, down to what the sawdust looks like in her house.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;O: When your character in Smoke feels overwhelmed, she goes on a run. What serves as your own sort of escape or emotional release?
JS: It&rsquo;s interesting that you bring up the running, because I worked out insanely during shooting. It was quite intense. I was on a regimen with my trainer, Jeanette Jenkins, and I gained 15 pounds of muscle. I was on this strict routine of eating five meals a day, lifting heavy weights, and drinking a gallon of water. That was incorporated into my ritual already, so perhaps it was a good escape or release. But that was also intentional in my effort to transform into Michelle. She's a former Marine, but because I naturally have a leaner build, I just was like, I'm not gonna buy it. I&rsquo;m going to watch it and be like, I don't buy her. I felt that I needed to transform in that way to have more of a muscular presence.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: Most of Michelle's colleagues are middle-aged white men, some of whom are quite toxic and make offensive jokes at her expense. What do you hope people take away from the show&rsquo;s portrayal of women&mdash;and especially women of color&mdash;in law enforcement?&nbsp;
JS: In general, I think the show comments about truth&mdash;the bureaucratic system, abuse of power, moral ambiguity. How sometimes those who are &ldquo;moral authorities&rdquo; are the worst at being upstanding and moral. This isn&rsquo;t new for someone like Michelle, who comes from continuously operating in various sectors of male-dominated fields, whether it's the Marines or being a detective. This is what she deals with, and I think it's why she works so hard to be one of the best, because she has a lot to prove. I also think she uses it as fuel. And it makes her go, All right, I'll show you how great I am.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;O: You started your own career very young, appearing in commercials as a baby before landing your first recurring TV roles on Full House and Hangin&rsquo; with Mr. Cooper in 1992. Did you always expect to stick with acting for the long haul?
JS: This might sound egotistical&mdash;really, I'm telling you, I am a humble person&mdash;but yes, I did. From a very young age, I knew that I wanted to pursue this for the rest of my life. I always studied the greats, and that was my goal: I wanted to be great, and I want to be one of the greats. To do that, you study the path and patterns and choices of the greats; it&rsquo;s like with sports, every single person that comes into the NBA studies Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul. You&rsquo;ve got to learn how they do it in order to try to do it yourself. At a very early age, my mom had me reading books about Katherine Hepburn, studying Cecily Tyson's films, watching Spencer Tracy&rsquo;s choices. Having done it since I was 10 months old, I feel incredibly blessed to still feel energized and to not be jaded about it. I love storytelling, and I am honestly just so hungry to grow. I want to stretch and become better and better, and to work with storytellers and collaborators who challenge me in that way.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: Would you ever encourage your son to go into the industry?&nbsp;
JS: It's so funny, because he's always on set. And he's now at an age where there are certain scenes I can let him watch, because he knows how to be quiet. So he'll sit at the monitor and see the cool special effects and the squibs popping out. I wouldn't let him do it at this age to the extent that I did. He wants to; he talks about it. Sometimes the directors will let him be in the shot or like, they'll throw them in the background and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's my son. Hunter, you're supposed to be over there, sitting in the chair. So I don't know. One of my many goals in life with raising him is to expose him to everything. He's in math class and doing pre-algebra at 8 and a half. He loves science. He loves sports, so he's in little league. I just want to expose him to everything and let him decide, when he's a grown up, what sticks.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: Having been in the public eye your entire life, how has your personal style evolved?&nbsp;
JS: I love expressing myself through fashion. But, to be candid, I didn't have access to the things that I loved for most of my career. I didn't have the ability to work with stylists early on; I&rsquo;d get access to a limited supply, or a limited rack. Now, my stylist, Jamie Mizrahi, and I are having a lot of fun playing with lines and things that feel retro, but aren&rsquo;t. So in my personal life, being able to express my mood or style through fashion has been thrilling. And when building a character, I&rsquo;ve always loved working with a costume designer&mdash;whether it was for Lovecraft Country, or Underground, or Smoke&mdash;and learning about the character through her clothes and the choices she makes.

'Smoke' Star Jurnee Smollett Still Isn’t Jaded By Hollywood

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