Sadness still makes her happy

People: Phyllis Smith

The veteran star of The Office says voicing the role of Sadness in Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out was a joyous experience that continues to animate her life

 

By Katherine Monk

Finding true joy in sadness is the stuff of self-help books, but for Phyliis Smith, it’s become the defining moment of her career—and she’s still in it.

Speaking over the phone, apparently from the Midwest home she grew up in with her siblings, Smith’s voice is charged with audible enthusiasm as she talks about her time working on Inside Out.

Released theatrically June 19th by Disney-Pixar, the animated feature about an eleven-year-old girl named Riley remains one of the biggest hits of the year, standing at number three for the year with over $355 million in domestic receipts.

Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and Joy (Amy Poehler) in Inside Out

Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) in Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out

Now out on home video today, Smith says the minute the movie premiered at Cannes, people told her it would be a turning point—including executive producer and member of the Pixar brain trust, John Lasseter.

“We were walking en masse somewhere and John said: I hope you know, from this point on you’re going to be known as Sadness. And I said: That’s a good thing. I am very happy to be Sadness.”

Smith could not be more sincere. She says ever since the movie came out, people have been coming up to her, thanking her for bringing an underappreciated, misunderstood, and largely unloved emotion into the spotlight.

“People don’t want to talk about sadness. They want to shove it under the rug and the beauty of this film is that it’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to have these emotions and know that one day, you can be sad and the next, you can be happy. It’s not a negative. Also, I thought I another lovely part of the film was with Bing Bong and Sadness… pointing out the idea that you can just be there when someone else is having a problem and it makes it better for them.”

Smith says she’s had her share of sadness, but for the most part, her life has been governed by joy: good friends, a close family and now, an acting career that began without any real expectations.

Trained as a dancer and a former cheerleader, Smith got into the acting game after a knee injury sidelined her dancing career and she moved into casting. She says watching thousands of auditions taught her what actually works, and what sells a performance, but she never had any formal training before she found full time work on The Office via Phyllis Vance, a character specifically written with her in mind.

“Phyllis was quirky, and that’s part of my personality,” says Smith.

“I work from instinct, mostly. After sitting across from actors and watching them and listening to them, I think I was unknowingly honing part of my craft. Just looking into their faces and seeing if I believed what they were saying,” she says.

“There are times when I wish I’d had real acting classes, but basically, with Sadness and the other roles I have played, I just follow what’s inside.”

“People don’t want to talk about sadness. They want to shove it under the rug and the beauty of this film is that it’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to have these emotions and know that one day, you can be sad and the next, you can be happy. It’s not a negative. Also, I thought I another lovely part of the film was with Bing Bong and Sadness… pointing out the idea that you can just be there when someone else is having a problem and it makes it better for them.”

And now that she’s done Inside Out, and the short film Riley’s First Date, Smith says she has a much better idea of the bits and pieces rumbling inside her own self.

“My core memories: I never had a word for them before I did this movie. And now, I just thought of a very nice core memory: My mom sewing green ribbons on my toe shoes. It’s a really nice memory, and she’s sitting in the same chair right now. I can see the top of her head.”

Smith’s voice suddenly flushes with a hint of a warm whisper.

“Things happen in life that you just have to buckle down and deal with, but I am very happy to say that the majority of my life has been driven by joy, not sadness. I’m fortunate my mother is here and she’s going to be 94, and she’s just the greatest. She is my best friend.”

Smith says her childhood in Missouri was pretty normal. “I didn’t give my childhood emotions much thought until I did Inside Out, and I think the central emotions were joy and fear. You know, fear of not being good enough, not being smart enough, not being a strong enough dancer – whatever it is.”

The neural pathways carved by those early years are still sending messages, and even though Inside Out was an animated movie designed for kids, the visual metaphor of different emotions vying for control over the personality panel helped Smith visualize and process her own feelings – and how they’ve shaped her own performances.

“Because I was never trained as an actor, I didn’t have emotional training, but – and I never really thought about this before – I was a dancer. And whether it’s modern dance or ballet, you have to emote. You have to dance the feelings suggested by the music and the movement, so I probably did have some control over those emotions – but in a way I never processed before.”

Smith says just about everyone who’s come up to her over the course of the press tour has commented on the film’s psychological insights, as well as the non-traditional Pixar hero: A little girl.

“Riley is an eleven-year-old who is not a princess. She plays hockey. She’s a real kid and she does things that you don’t want her to do, but I give Pixar credit for that. They took a real step forward and gave us a female character who was believable, and the driving force of the film,” says Smith.

“I just feel so happy that as Sadness, I got to be a part of it.”

@katherinemonk

 

Inside Out is available on home video today. Click here to read the full theatrical review. Riley’s First Date is viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qZEkXTGIc

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