Yeardley Smith is a woman of many talents, one of them is possessing the most recognizable voice in television history—the voice of Lisa Simpson. Actress, podcaster, author, and producer also fill her lengthy list of accomplishments, but this talented woman whose success came quickly and early in life, hit a few road blocks along the way. Smith took time away from her schedule (and noshing on delectable barbecue) in Austin where her film “All Square” premiered to talk about her career path, words of advice, and the future of women in Hollywood.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
PP: What advice would you give your younger self?
YS: Do not attach your value to your accomplishments…I didn’t realize I was doing it until I was 20 years into my career, that I had tied my identity and my value to external things. And of course you can’t fill up the inside from the outside.
PP: And you do a one woman live stage show?
YS: I did. Do is the wrong tense. Did. I’ll never do it again. Around that time that I thought, ok I better pull up my socks and do it myself. Sadly, the NYT reviewed it like your mother would write. Pretty much everyone else disliked it. I think it was terribly misunderstood where people thought, you have everything. I don’t know why I should feel sorry for you. And I was like, Oh my God, you’ve missed the point! That’s what I’m telling you, I have everything and how come it didn’t work. How come all of that material wealth and all of these opportunities didn’t make me feel like whatever I felt was broken inside of me is now fixed. The audiences really loved it, but because it was not well reviewed, we couldn’t fill the houses and it closed.
The audio interview in its entirety here