Jodie Turner-Smith Is Finding Herself Again and Again and Again
At 7:37 a.m. on a hot summer Friday in my Brooklyn apartment, I am sitting in a film class taught by actress Jodie Turner-Smith—like one of those virtual MasterClass sessions you’ve seen on your TikTok feed, only in real time over Zoom. She is sitting in her London apartment, but it feels like we are in the room together as she flicks her wrist, nearly reaching through my laptop to ask, “Do you have it on your screen?” I’m not even halfway through saying yes when she excitedly exclaims, “Click play!”
I start the 1998 Hype Williams’s crime thriller Belly, and I’m watching Turner-Smith watch me. She can hear the music through the screen and can tell exactly which part I’m at. An a capella version of “Back to Life” by Soul II Soul echoes through the club as Nas and DMX weave in and out of a dancing crowd, lit by bright-blue neon overhead lights. “This might be the fucking coolest intro ever!” she expresses eagerly before scanning my face for approval. “Don’t you think?” I agree and not just because I trust her judgment but because the intro perfectly captures the essence of the ’90s club scene in a way that makes me incessantly nostalgic for something I didn’t experience. “Some people didn’t get it, and that makes me sad,” she laughs.
A third of our conversation is taken up by Turner-Smith and I discussing her favorite movies, those that have been influential in her career and those she likes with fashion. Turner-Smith names at least 20 films, from Vagabond to Housesitter to Cleo From 5 to 7. This list, she tells me, is how she learned about being an actress.
“I always joke that I put myself to film school via the Criterion Collection,” the British actress tells me. “I would sit in my apartment, and I would just watch films and study performances.” Unlike many of her peers, Turner-Smith didn’t always know she wanted to be an entertainer. “My first foray into [acting] wasn’t driven by an intense desire to perform,” she explains. “It was more like, You know what? Let me try to start. I just wanted to see what happens.”
Before taking that leap of faith, Turner-Smith actually started in corporate banking, a career move she describes as going down a path of what she thought she ought to be doing versus what she actually wanted to do. But when she realized everyone around her seemed to enjoy or have some kind of passion for what they were doing, she knew she had to leave. “People would say, ‘Wow, it’s so brave that you did that.’ And for me, I was just more afraid of not doing it!” she explains. “I never felt brave for one second. I was absolutely terrified, but I was more afraid of not doing it, and so I decided to go for it.”
After briefly exploring an interest in writing, Turner-Smith was encouraged “by the adults” in her life to try modeling. It’s actually hard to imagine her statuesque frame sitting in a corporate banking cubicle. “At that point, after doing what I was supposed to do, and having ticked all those boxes and deciding to make a change, I had the sort of state of mind that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by just trying things.”
So she moved to Los Angeles because it seemed like a place you go to “make it.” “But I didn’t know anything about modeling, so I didn’t know that L.A. is not really the place you go to be a successful model,” she admits. While her modeling career didn’t necessarily take off, she did end up booking plenty of television commercials, which landed her in the actors union. Another career pivot felt imminent, and before long, she found herself auditioning for small films.
“I had an experience auditioning for a movie that I didn’t end up getting,” Turner-Smith recalls. “But the experience of doing that and the work that I had to do to prepare really shifted something for me inside.” While some are motivated by rejection, she was more so propelled forward by the unexpected self-discovery that came from it. “I realized, as human beings, we always try to subvert our shadows. We don’t want people to see the ugly bits of us. And I realized that the things that I want to hide… those things belong to me and I can use them for my craft. I found that very freeing. That’s when I really fell in love with it.”
In November 2018, she got her big break when she was cast in Queen & Slim, a Melina Matsoukas film about a young couple on the run after killing a police officer in self-defense. Turner-Smith was cast as the titular Queen, alongside Daniel Kaluuya’s Slim. The film was met with critical acclaim—the New York Times Magazine published a piece in 2019 titled “‘Queen & Slim’ Could Be One of the Great Love Stories of All Time—If You Let It”—while also igniting conversations around police violence. It was the role that launched her into mainstream fame.
When discussing this moment in her career, Turner-Smith looks off camera for a moment while trying to remember an exact quote from an Interview magazine profile written about her. “There was something in there about me being a 10-year overnight success,” she recalls. “You know, that’s always how it is, right? When you finally get your first break, everyone is like, ‘Oh overnight it happened!’ But nobody sees that actually, you’ve spent a decade getting there. I was 10 years in Los Angeles before Queen & Slim happened. I had gone through many different iterations of my career. I had a couple years of just waffling and not doing anything.”
Since then, Turner-Smith has gone on to star in a variety of projects, ranging from the action comedy film Murder Mystery 2 with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler to the Anne Boleyn miniseries, in which she plays the Queen of England, to The Agency, a spy thriller TV series with Michael Fassbender. But Turner-Smith’s most recent project, Tron: Ares, the latest installment in the beloved science-fiction franchise, is her biggest yet. “I’ve never been a part of a film this size,” she says of landing the role of Athena. “And I got to play an absolute fucking badass. I wanted to smash things and be fierce and fucking raise hell.”
Her first question to the Tron: Ares team was if she would get to ride a light cycle, the fictional motorcycle characters cruise on while playing a deadly virtual game in Tron’s digital universe. When they told her yes, she knew she had to take on the role. “I mean, that is the coolest bit! It’s fun for people to be scared of a bitch on wheels,” she says before laughing, “and then there’s also the incredibly talented cast as well.”
Turner-Smith’s first introduction to the franchise was the 2010 film Tron: Legacy. “I just remember when that came out, I was so enthralled and excited by it, and that fucking score was amazing.” Without missing a beat, Turner-Smith snaps back into film-teacher mode.
She mentions watching The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, noting, “Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch did the score. Remember that?” She goes on to mention how impactful it was to actually sit and hear their work as it was meant to be experienced. “I remember sitting in that movie theater and thinking to myself, I want to be in a movie that has Nine Inch Nails in it! And here we are,” she says. “When I heard that Nine Inch Nails was going to be on the Tron: Ares soundtrack, I squealed.”
The band’s new song, “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” plays in the Tron: Ares trailer, but Turner-Smith makes sure to mention how it’ll sound different bouncing off the walls of a real theater and not just those of my apartment. “You’ll see. It is real event cinema,” she assures me.
Ironically, Tron: Ares isn’t really about the human experience. In the film, humans discover AI beings for the first time when Ares, a sophisticated program, is sent out from the digital world into the real world on a mission. “Our film is exploring how ethics and the human element of what AI is capable of, or is meant to do, intersect,” she explains. “Warfare is a big industry, and we’re playing these programs that are an elite special forces team. You throw in ethics with that and think, What is a person going to do when they have that kind of power?“
What Turner-Smith finds particularly interesting about the way Tron: Ares tackles artificial intelligence is that it’ll be interacting with an everyday reality. “It’s like with what’s happening now. You’re seeing the way that AI is part of everybody’s life. What is going to be the journey with that? What is the conclusion of that? Are we going to be simply unleashing all powerful beings into the hands of dangerous people? Or will these beings eventually take over?” She hopes that the film inspires everyone to keep having those kinds of conversations.
Thinking about what’s next for the 38-year-old, I ask Turner-Smith if she’s ever felt behind, having found her calling a bit later in life than some of her peers who were perhaps born into it or knew it was their destiny from a young age. “In entertainment, it’s very much still a thing where youth is a currency.” She pauses before mentioning her divorce from actor Joshua Jackson and how she decided she would learn French in the aftermath. It was always something she wanted to do. “It was really validating for me as well to just remind myself that I’m a very intelligent person. It’s never too late, and I’m capable! I can restart or I can find myself again anytime that I want to.”
It’s an attitude she carries with her. “I can become something new at whatever point I choose in my life, and I strive to keep that same mentality until I’m in the grave—or actually, not in the grave!” She corrects herself quickly before letting out a grin. “Hopefully, my ashes have been made into a really nice piece of jewelry for people in my family to wear.”
But in her lifetime, Turner-Smith admits she’d like to do it all. And why not? She’s already gone from banker to aspiring writer to model to actress. What’s a few more career pivots? “I definitely love performing, and I am of the mind that I would love to see how far I can take it, how much I can grow. I want to do some horror. I would love to do a musical. I would love to be on stage. I would love to do more things in the comedy world.” It reminds me of a quote she brought up minutes into our conversation: “It’s been misattributed many times to different people, but it’s that ‘it’s never too late to be what you might have been.'”
Before we wrap up our call, Turner-Smith reminds me of some of the films we discussed earlier, as if it were a syllabus I was meant to complete. “Remember, Vagabond! Add it to your list! Agnès Varda! The best!” Her enthusiasm makes me want to watch and rewatch every movie on Earth.
As we hang up the Zoom call, I’m sure of one thing: She is transforming into the kind of star you build watch lists around—the kind of star where someday someone plays the opening of a scene she’s in and asks you to pay close attention to make sure you understand the magnitude, the talent, the beauty that is Jodie Turner-Smith.
Talent: Jodie Turner-Smith
Photographer: Alex de Mora
Stylist: Phoebe Lettice Thompson
Creative Directior: Amy Armani
Fashion Directior: Lauren Eggertsen
Entertainment Director: Jessica Baker
Hairstylist: Marcia Lee
Locs Hairstylist: Yasmin Amira
Makeup Artist: Joey Choy
Manicurist: Sabrina Gayle
(Image credit: Future)
