By Bill Vaughn
Contributing Columnist
Columbus Post

For TASHA SMITH, acting is much more than a talent. It’s a lifesaver. The former stand-up comic credits her passion for the thespian arts and the help of some friends like Tisha Martin-Campbell with helping her kick addictions formed in her teen years. “I was coming out of Camden [NJ] and every friend I had was a drug dealer, a pimp, a ho,” she told Tasty Clips. “I had a very rough upbringing. So [drugs] just kept me in a fantasy world. It kept me from my pain. Comedy did that [too] but I was getting high while doing it and drinking a lot. I had to change my environment. After I stopped doing comedy, I studied and drowned into acting. It was like it was my drug.” Since sobriety, the self-described “people person” opened an acting studio in L.A. and parlayed smaller parts in ATL, Playa’s Ball, and HBO’s The Corner into substantial roles in two Tyler Perry films.
Q. What was your first exposure to show business?
A. “I was 15, bartending at Caesar’s Palace with a fake ID. I remember the first week I worked Harry Belafonte was performing and I was loving it. I wasn’t even supposed to be there but I had the body of a 20-year-old and was very mature. I only worked there to support my drug habit.” (laughs) So you weren’t really gambling at all. “I wasn’t spending my money on gambling, I was spending it on cocaine. I would hit the blackjack table just a little bit and the slots, but was more or less trying to get high in the back.”
Q. Was there a stepping stone? Did the alcohol lead to the marijuana to the cocaine?
A. “Trust me it all led to everything. (laughs) I had to lead myself back to leaving it all alone.”
Q. You played a cold-blooded mom from hell in Daddy’s Little Girls. While prepping for the role did you see her as a totally wicked woman? “I always say you can’t judge the character.
A. I know she’s a villain, but for me as an actor, I can’t look at her as being a bad person because every person has a reason to do what they do. Murder isn’t good but people kill for a reason. You look at Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. Did he think he was bad? He felt justified.”
Q. Was there a point where you said this is a little much? Were you worried about the balance?
A. “Yeah. Tyler didn’t want her to have a balance. As far as he was concerned she was the devil of the script. He didn’t want to have any kind of sympathy, vulnerability or anything. I had to defer to his desires.” And folks sure did hate that character. “I’ve had people say, ‘Oh you are such a bitch. You piss me off.’ I mean even in church. And I say: Thank you. That means I did my job.”
Q. That movie didn’t do as well as the other Tyler films. Why was that?
A. “I’d probably start with promotion because I don’t know that it had the same visibility as the movies he’s done in the past. I feel in order for African-American films to do really great the advertising and promotion have to be extremely aggressive. You already don’t have Madea in it and we know Madea sells a lot of tickets. So, therefore, you kind of have to do a little more. You can’t do a little less. I mean there were billboards all over the place for Family Reunion.” It also seemed like it was a top bootleg. “Bootleg will hurt a Negro. Come on. If you have 40 percent of the people buying $3 bootlegs and loaning them to one another, trust me, they’re not going to go to the theatre.”
Q. Tell us about your part in Why Did I Get Married?
A. “I think [Tyler] wrote Madea but changed her name to Angela and gave it to me. She’s the voice every woman wants to have. If not her, her best friend. So in your face. I had so much fun playing that role.”
Q. How was it working with such a large talented ensemble?
A. “The camaraderie on that set was brilliant. Janet [Jackson] was so wonderful I swear to you I thought she was an imposter. I did not believe it. I just talked to her the other day and I told her: Girl, I still don’t believe you were on that set.”
Q. Who had the biggest challenge on that set?
A. “Emotionally, they all went through far more than what my character went through. They brought the heavier dramatic moments to the film. Jill Scott probably had the most challenging role because she played an extremely overweight woman. She had to walk around in a fat suit all the time. And the way people treated her and made her feel, and the emotional stuff that she went through in doing that film. She’s so courageous and she’s such a team player, but it was very challenging for her. I know.”
Q. Why is it so hard in our community to hook up?
A. “Cause ain’t nobody teach us nothing, I think. I used to have this joke: Nobody taught me how to be married. You know what I’m saying? My momma did not have a PH.D. in relationships. It wasn’t something that was taught and always talked about. Think about it. Most of us don’t come from two- parent households. You don’t see it enough to give you a lot of hope in it being the way. A lot of people that I talked to, who have been afraid of marriage, their excuses have always been ‘I never saw a working relationship -– ever.’ It takes away their hope.”
Q. As a divorcee, what do you know now about marriage that you didn’t know? What will make you better the next time?
A. “To not compromise myself. To be more honest in the beginning of the relationship. I think sometimes we’re so afraid to lose, that we lie – then to live the lie is impossible. I think truth is important in the beginning. It makes the fight fair because if you’re developing a relationship based on lies and assumptions and lack of communication, it’s not going to buil d a real strong foundation. Sometimes we have to be brutally honest in order to make changes and really know what we’re getting into.”
Q. Who could you see yourself playing in a biopic?
A. “Donna Summer.” That’s good. (laughs)
Q. Can you sing?
A. “No, we’d have to use her vocals.”
Q. How about the dancing?
A. “I can do a little two step, baby. (laughs) She wasn’t Beyonce’d out. She had her four step and that’s it.”

Tasha will next be seen on screen in Something Like A Business, an independent comedy directed by Russ Parr, with an all-star cast that includes David Alan Grier, Keith David, Kym Whitley, J. Anthony Brown and Earthquake. Films in the works include Red Soil, a child slavery drama to be shot in Ghana by Charles Burnett with co-stars Mykelti Williamson and Kimberly Elise; and Mother’s Milk, to be filmed in Jamaica by Cess Silvera (Shottas).

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