Call Me Izzy Star Jean Smart on the Role That Pulled Her Back to Broadway

Jean Smart is back on Broadway for the first time in 25 years in Call Me Izzy, Jamie Wax’s solo play about a woman in rural Louisiana whose life has been shaped by poverty and violence. Izzy writes poetry in private, never planning to share it. When her words do reach others, things begin to shift.

“I thought it was an extraordinarily unique piece of writing,” Smart told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. “This woman who got married at 17, lives in a trailer park, and this stunning poetry just pours out of her, but she has to hide it. I thought everything about it was unique and wonderful. I just fell in love with her.” Izzy sometimes even writes her poems with eyeliner on scraps of toilet paper, using whatever she can find to get her thoughts down.

Smart is a Tony nominee, a six-time Emmy winner and a Golden Globe winner. She is best known for her work on Hacks, Frasier, Watchmen and Designing Women. She made her Broadway debut in Piaf in 1981 and earned a Tony nomination for her performance in The Man Who Came to Dinner in 2000. In this 85-minute solo show, she stays onstage the entire time.

Though the story centers on Izzy, Smart voices eight other characters. “Ninety percent of it is Izzy,” she said, “but the rest of it is her husband, her teacher, her neighbor, an older couple she meets briefly, a cowboy she picks up. They’re filtered through the lens of Izzy.”

Smart admitted she hesitated before saying yes. “The idea of it was very daunting,” she said. “Once I started doing it, I thought, ‘OK, yeah. I think I can do this.’” She compared the challenge to a long monologue she performed years ago in Christopher Durang’s Laughing Wild. “That was hard to learn. I’m good at learning lines, but that was scary. I was also in my thirties and had more brain cells.”

What keeps her invested in the role is Izzy’s spirit. “She’s a survivor, and she still has optimism,” Smart said. “She still has joy even when she goes through really, really, really rough times.”

Watch the interview below!