{"id":56361,"date":"2018-05-07T17:49:44","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T17:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56361"},"modified":"2018-05-07T17:49:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T17:49:44","slug":"the-evolution-of-jurnee-smollett-bell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56361","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution of Jurnee Smollett-Bell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Evolution of Jurnee Smollett-Bell<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Shondaland<\/a>
\n2018-05-04<\/p>\n

Rebecca Carroll<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nJurnee Smollett-Bell<\/a> GETTY\/BRIANNA ELLIS-MITCHELL<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

I\u2019m always in serious awe of really skilled child actors, because contrary to what a lot of folks likely think, it\u2019s not just about playing make-believe. Sure, there is an element of pretending, but even that, I think, is a really courageous thing to do as a kid \u2014 to go deeply into your imagination, and stay there for hours upon hours. What if you forget who you really are? And, of course, a lot of child actors, especially those who find success, do end up forgetting who they really are. But one instance of a child actor who legit held it down as a young talent and then grew up to be straight fire: Jurnee Smollett-Bell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most striking of Smollett-Bell\u2019s childhood cinematic oeuvre, to my mind, is her star turn in Kasi Lemmon\u2019s<\/a> gorgeous beyond belief breakout independent film \u201cEve\u2019s Bayou<\/a>,\u201d which the late Roger Ebert<\/a> named the best film of 1997. The story takes place over the course of a thick, blistering summer in rural Louisiana<\/a>, and Smollett-Bell gives a searingly vivid performance as 10-year-old Eve Baptiste, whose daddy (Samuel Jackson<\/a>), even though he\u2019s a doctor, is no-count as hell, and the rest of her Creole<\/a> family is kind of a hot mess, too. There\u2019s a lot that can be said about the film on it\u2019s own according \u2014 including Lemmons\u2019 fierce command as a first-time filmmaker, the fine and brittle performance by Lynn Whitfield<\/a> (Queen) as Eve\u2019s mother, the sinewy depth of the cinematography, and set production, and just all the glistening, damaged, and glorious black skin in every single scene. But it\u2019s Smollett-Bell, in her little denim overalls and mile-high Eve attitude that has stayed with me all these years.<\/p>\n

Smollett-Bell, who comes from an entire constellation of stars \u2014 her brother Jussie<\/a> is on a little show called \u201cEmpire<\/a>,\u201d and there\u2019s also brothers Jojo, Jocqui, and Jake<\/a>, and sister Jazz \u2014 grew up in New York City<\/a>, where she and her siblings all began acting very young. All six siblings starred in the short-lived ABC<\/a> sitcom \u201cOn Our Own<\/a>.\u201d They’ve remained close and recently published a cookbook together called “The Family Table<\/a>.” The sitcom led to a handful of film roles for Smollett-Bell, among them \u201cEve\u2019s Bayou,\u201d also \u201cBeautiful Joe<\/a>\u201d with Sharon Stone<\/a>, and later, \u201cThe Great Debaters<\/a>\u201d with Forest Whittaker<\/a> and Denzel Washington<\/a> (who also directed). Smollett-Bell went on to work consistently in television, appearing as a series regular on \u201cFriday Night Lights<\/a>,\u201d \u201cThe Defenders,\u201d \u201cTrue Blood\u201d and the black folk family favorite, \u201cUnderground<\/a>\u201d (hootie hoo!), which earned her two Outstanding Actress nominations from the NAACP Image Awards<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But one instance of a child actor who legit held it down as a young talent and then grew up to be straight fire: Jurnee Smollett-Bell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8,20],"tags":[28606,22899,27547],"class_list":["post-56361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-jurnee-smollett-bell","tag-rebecca-carroll","tag-shondaland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56362,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56361\/revisions\/56362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}