Alexandria Smothers
- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Alexandra Smothers was born at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. Her
father was a third generation Cardinal at Stanford. She jokes that she
must have been a "smart baby" to be born at such a prestigious school.
Her Dad became a well-respected attorney and her mom was a waitress at
their family restaurant for 50 years known as the "Rainbow Hut" on the
Central Coast. She moved a lot as a child, between her biker mom and
protective sister, her intellectual giant of a Dad, and ultimately the
two who had a great impact on her life, her grandparents. She is
grateful to them for raising her, with the help of her great aunt and
uncle from Palo Alto for taking her from foster care and providing her
with a boarding school education. Alexandra experienced living at every
economic level and had a myriad of life experiences that give her a
rich well to draw from as an actress.
Academy Award Nominated Actress Carrie Snodgress befriended Smothers in
line for a ride at Magic Mountain and mentored her in her journey to
becoming a working actress and a mom. She stressed the value of
volunteering one's time to worthy causes. Smothers studied with Mr.
Cochran, former Yale professor who taught Meryl Streep and Danny
Glover. Smothers credits Oliver Stone for inspiring her to come to Los
Angeles to work as an actress in films after meeting him at the Fiesta
Five Movie Theater in Santa Barbara, where Alexandra gave him a tiny
little slide that a photographer nearby just happened to have on him.
She had just finished her first film, "The Legend of Shokar" that
premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 1992. He
encouraged her to come to LA. She moved from Santa Barbara where she
was attending school and living on a boat to Los Angeles.
Her Dad came into her life again after a ten-year absence. He was a
resident at the Betty Ford Center. His roommate was unit publicist,
Thomas Gray, who took Alexandra under his wing and taught her what he
new about the business of show. By 1996, she was getting hundreds of
auditions and a few small roles that ended up mostly on the cutting
room floor. Her film and TV credits include Will Smith's breakthrough
series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" which she was fired from for
trying a different accent each take, "I was green!" she laughs,
red-faced.
Her first agent was Joel Tappis. They met while she sat alone waiting
for a man for whom she had decided to buy some teeth so that he could
look for a job. (He didn't have any in the front)
Smothers agreed to travel to see about a picture and was brought in on
Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!" (in which the film pioneer cast her as a
Cleopatra cocktail waitress) by Marilee Lear. She had her own trailer
and was on set for a week with Tim Burton, Danny DeVito and Annette
Bening. Smothers couldn't help but be inspired by them, and the
cinematographer Peter Suschitzky taught her about creating meaningful
moments on film.
She flew from the set in Vegas to see her Dad marry his wife Heidi at
the Little Chapel in Yosemite Valley. Two months later, Alexandra's
son, Isaac, was conceived to her free-spirited globetrotting new
boyfriend. She moved back to the Central Coast to raise her newborn
son, Isaac, and to help her sister, Tasha who was sick. She changed her
name from Brandy to Alexandra. In contemplating the naming of her son,
she realized the importance of a name and its meaning. " 'Brandy' means
'conqueror.' 'Alexandra' means 'helper of mankind'. Smothers wanted to devote her time to her son. Two years
later, while on a good-will ambassador trip to aid an orphanage in
Mexico, a producer took notice of her. Three months later, Smothers,
living in a small country town of 282 people, received a phone call.
She was hired to fly to Belize as an on-screen narrator to make the
case for the conservation of the rainforests, providing clean drinking
water to the world and building safe homes for "Target Earth" and "Eden
Conservancy". When she got back, she met the disciplined and compelling
director Patti Kane, who created a theatre in Paso Robles that debuted
with Smothers' performance as Cherie in 'Bus Stop' in the year 2000,
Classic American Theatre was born. For the next five years Smothers
worked closely with artist-in-residence Jeffrey Schultz and Director
Patti Kane bringing powerful leading ladies to life to packed houses
and standing ovations. She played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
which was produced by Rob Stevens who was known to the Los Angeles
theatre community for producing the awards show "The Robbies."
Alexandra missed out on knowing her father as a child. She and her son
spent every Christmas with him and his wife Heidi in Ahwahnee, just
outside of Yosemite. While Smothers and her dad didn't enjoy the
close-knit relationship she longed for, her dad told her that he was
her biggest fan after seeing Smothers in "Bus Stop" as Cherie, a role
brought to the screen by the late Marilyn Monroe.
The desire to share her work with a larger audience led her back to Los
Angeles. Her first appearance on stage in Los Angeles was as Blanche
DuBois in "Streetcar Named Desire," and at the Improv Comedy Lab as
Mrs. Brown in "National Velvet. " Again, with the audience limited to
those who could make it to the theatre, Smothers set out in search of a
wider audience.
In 2007, Alexandra represented Lucky Jeans and Liz Claiborne as a model
in Sri Lanka, and had a very emotional journey down the coast hosted by
Hidiramani Corporation, the clothing manufacturer. They took her to the
village built for the survivors who had lost family members in the
tsunami following the magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004. When she got
there, they held a town hall meeting to tell her of their desire for
peacekeeping, language education, and technology. Smothers would still
like to establish aide to the region.
After hearing Producer Ralph Winter speak about the importance of
making movies and not just dreaming about it, Smothers engaged the help
of a very talented cinematographer Paolo Cascio to create a short film
about her sister's recent death at 37 in a head- on collision. The
story was originally titled "Illa Ensis" but at the last second was
changed to "Broken" It was a very personal journey that premiered at
the Alex Theatre on April 4, 2009. WGA writer Jeff Wilber wrote the
non-linear script.
In 2010, on their third collaboration with Smothers, Directors Roberto
Fernando Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu wrote a feature script with Alexandra in
mind to play one of the leads in an ensemble piece, and asked Alexandra
to join them.
The first day of filming for her first feature film, Smothers learned
her father was dying of Pancreatic cancer. "Desire Street" with
Alejandra Walker, Ellen Clifford, Javier Lopez and Alexandra Smothers,
first screened a rough cut on November 13, 2009 In Theatre 3 on the
Universal Studios lot. Her father passed away on May 4, 2010 and she
doesn't know if he ever saw that film. She hastily married someone she
hadn't dated five days later in her grief.
In the summer of 2010 Alexandra Smothers played Margie the waitress in
"Silent Crossroads" set in the 60's in rural Echo, Utah and directed by
her husband. She won the "Best Performance in an Acting Role" award
from 'Action on Film' Film Festival WithOutaBox Award in 2012, and was
nominated for Best Actress from the Movieville Film Festival in
Sarasota Florida. They created another short film shortly thereafter
where she plays a spy. Their relationship ended upon its completion and
separation was a rocky one. Smothers delved into volunteering to keep
her life in perspective.
She worked worked briefly on the mob comedy feature "Pizza With
Bullets" starring Talia Shire, Vincent Pastore, Ronnie Marmo, Tony
Amendola, Tony Devon and directed by Robert Rothbard.
father was a third generation Cardinal at Stanford. She jokes that she
must have been a "smart baby" to be born at such a prestigious school.
Her Dad became a well-respected attorney and her mom was a waitress at
their family restaurant for 50 years known as the "Rainbow Hut" on the
Central Coast. She moved a lot as a child, between her biker mom and
protective sister, her intellectual giant of a Dad, and ultimately the
two who had a great impact on her life, her grandparents. She is
grateful to them for raising her, with the help of her great aunt and
uncle from Palo Alto for taking her from foster care and providing her
with a boarding school education. Alexandra experienced living at every
economic level and had a myriad of life experiences that give her a
rich well to draw from as an actress.
Academy Award Nominated Actress Carrie Snodgress befriended Smothers in
line for a ride at Magic Mountain and mentored her in her journey to
becoming a working actress and a mom. She stressed the value of
volunteering one's time to worthy causes. Smothers studied with Mr.
Cochran, former Yale professor who taught Meryl Streep and Danny
Glover. Smothers credits Oliver Stone for inspiring her to come to Los
Angeles to work as an actress in films after meeting him at the Fiesta
Five Movie Theater in Santa Barbara, where Alexandra gave him a tiny
little slide that a photographer nearby just happened to have on him.
She had just finished her first film, "The Legend of Shokar" that
premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 1992. He
encouraged her to come to LA. She moved from Santa Barbara where she
was attending school and living on a boat to Los Angeles.
Her Dad came into her life again after a ten-year absence. He was a
resident at the Betty Ford Center. His roommate was unit publicist,
Thomas Gray, who took Alexandra under his wing and taught her what he
new about the business of show. By 1996, she was getting hundreds of
auditions and a few small roles that ended up mostly on the cutting
room floor. Her film and TV credits include Will Smith's breakthrough
series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" which she was fired from for
trying a different accent each take, "I was green!" she laughs,
red-faced.
Her first agent was Joel Tappis. They met while she sat alone waiting
for a man for whom she had decided to buy some teeth so that he could
look for a job. (He didn't have any in the front)
Smothers agreed to travel to see about a picture and was brought in on
Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!" (in which the film pioneer cast her as a
Cleopatra cocktail waitress) by Marilee Lear. She had her own trailer
and was on set for a week with Tim Burton, Danny DeVito and Annette
Bening. Smothers couldn't help but be inspired by them, and the
cinematographer Peter Suschitzky taught her about creating meaningful
moments on film.
She flew from the set in Vegas to see her Dad marry his wife Heidi at
the Little Chapel in Yosemite Valley. Two months later, Alexandra's
son, Isaac, was conceived to her free-spirited globetrotting new
boyfriend. She moved back to the Central Coast to raise her newborn
son, Isaac, and to help her sister, Tasha who was sick. She changed her
name from Brandy to Alexandra. In contemplating the naming of her son,
she realized the importance of a name and its meaning. " 'Brandy' means
'conqueror.' 'Alexandra' means 'helper of mankind'. Smothers wanted to devote her time to her son. Two years
later, while on a good-will ambassador trip to aid an orphanage in
Mexico, a producer took notice of her. Three months later, Smothers,
living in a small country town of 282 people, received a phone call.
She was hired to fly to Belize as an on-screen narrator to make the
case for the conservation of the rainforests, providing clean drinking
water to the world and building safe homes for "Target Earth" and "Eden
Conservancy". When she got back, she met the disciplined and compelling
director Patti Kane, who created a theatre in Paso Robles that debuted
with Smothers' performance as Cherie in 'Bus Stop' in the year 2000,
Classic American Theatre was born. For the next five years Smothers
worked closely with artist-in-residence Jeffrey Schultz and Director
Patti Kane bringing powerful leading ladies to life to packed houses
and standing ovations. She played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
which was produced by Rob Stevens who was known to the Los Angeles
theatre community for producing the awards show "The Robbies."
Alexandra missed out on knowing her father as a child. She and her son
spent every Christmas with him and his wife Heidi in Ahwahnee, just
outside of Yosemite. While Smothers and her dad didn't enjoy the
close-knit relationship she longed for, her dad told her that he was
her biggest fan after seeing Smothers in "Bus Stop" as Cherie, a role
brought to the screen by the late Marilyn Monroe.
The desire to share her work with a larger audience led her back to Los
Angeles. Her first appearance on stage in Los Angeles was as Blanche
DuBois in "Streetcar Named Desire," and at the Improv Comedy Lab as
Mrs. Brown in "National Velvet. " Again, with the audience limited to
those who could make it to the theatre, Smothers set out in search of a
wider audience.
In 2007, Alexandra represented Lucky Jeans and Liz Claiborne as a model
in Sri Lanka, and had a very emotional journey down the coast hosted by
Hidiramani Corporation, the clothing manufacturer. They took her to the
village built for the survivors who had lost family members in the
tsunami following the magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004. When she got
there, they held a town hall meeting to tell her of their desire for
peacekeeping, language education, and technology. Smothers would still
like to establish aide to the region.
After hearing Producer Ralph Winter speak about the importance of
making movies and not just dreaming about it, Smothers engaged the help
of a very talented cinematographer Paolo Cascio to create a short film
about her sister's recent death at 37 in a head- on collision. The
story was originally titled "Illa Ensis" but at the last second was
changed to "Broken" It was a very personal journey that premiered at
the Alex Theatre on April 4, 2009. WGA writer Jeff Wilber wrote the
non-linear script.
In 2010, on their third collaboration with Smothers, Directors Roberto
Fernando Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu wrote a feature script with Alexandra in
mind to play one of the leads in an ensemble piece, and asked Alexandra
to join them.
The first day of filming for her first feature film, Smothers learned
her father was dying of Pancreatic cancer. "Desire Street" with
Alejandra Walker, Ellen Clifford, Javier Lopez and Alexandra Smothers,
first screened a rough cut on November 13, 2009 In Theatre 3 on the
Universal Studios lot. Her father passed away on May 4, 2010 and she
doesn't know if he ever saw that film. She hastily married someone she
hadn't dated five days later in her grief.
In the summer of 2010 Alexandra Smothers played Margie the waitress in
"Silent Crossroads" set in the 60's in rural Echo, Utah and directed by
her husband. She won the "Best Performance in an Acting Role" award
from 'Action on Film' Film Festival WithOutaBox Award in 2012, and was
nominated for Best Actress from the Movieville Film Festival in
Sarasota Florida. They created another short film shortly thereafter
where she plays a spy. Their relationship ended upon its completion and
separation was a rocky one. Smothers delved into volunteering to keep
her life in perspective.
She worked worked briefly on the mob comedy feature "Pizza With
Bullets" starring Talia Shire, Vincent Pastore, Ronnie Marmo, Tony
Amendola, Tony Devon and directed by Robert Rothbard.