Phyllis Smith

From Pom-Poms to Unemployment

Phyllis Smith wasn't behind the camera; her place was in casting offices. For years, she worked as an assistant to Allison Jones, and her job was to read the lines opposite actors so they could show off their skills. In 2005, she was sitting in a gray office helping cast the American version of The Office.

Ken Kwapis watched her as she read the script with candidates. The director saw something in the way she delivered her lines that was not in the professional playbook. So he decided to create a character specifically for her. And the gamble paid off.

Nobody was expecting her.

Before landing a job at a television office, Phyllis Smith was a cheerleader for the St. Louis Cardinals. In the 1970s, she ran across football fields with pom-poms and a mandatory smile. But her true passion was burlesque. She worked as a professional dancer until a knee injury forced her to hang up her feathers and look for a conventional job.

After the accident, she returned to St. Louis and took several administrative jobs she hated. But fate brought her back to Hollywood to work behind the cameras. Smith accepted her destiny as a casting director with the resignation of someone who knows the train to the stage has already left the station.

The Office as a Survival Ecosystem

The character of Phyllis Vance was born as an extension of her own shyness. In The Office, she played a woman who seemed harmless but harbored a dark, competitive side. The writers drew on her past as a dancer to give depth to a role that was initially not meant to carry much weight in the storyline.

Her salary during the first season was that of an entry-level employee. But her chemistry with the rest of the cast forced the producers to move her up a level. Smith stayed with the series for all nine seasons without losing the naturalness of someone who doesn't see herself as a television star. She always considered herself a working woman who got lucky.

And then the call from Pixar came.

In 2015, she lent her voice to Sadness in the animated film Inside Out. Director Pete Docter chose her after seeing her in a scene from the film Bad Teacher in 2011. Hearing her subdued, melancholy tone was enough to convince him that she was the only one capable of bringing that emotion to life without falling into cheap drama.

The Melancholy Register

Smith's voice performance was key to the film's commercial success. She made a negative feeling come across as tender and necessary for young audiences. But despite the worldwide fame that Disney brought her, she chose to keep a low profile at her home in St. Louis. She doesn't attend industry parties or seek out fashion magazine covers.

In 2016, she appeared in the Netflix series The OA, playing Elizabeth Broderick-Allen. It was a complete change of pace toward science-fiction drama. Her character was a high school teacher dealing with grief and loneliness in a strange environment. She proved she could carry scenes of intense emotional tension without relying on office comedy.

Voice work is her favorite refuge.

In 2024, she returned to the recording studios to reprise her role in Inside Out 2. The production of this sequel went beyond its initial budget of $150 million, and Smith was paid a fee befitting her status as a key figure in the franchise. Her lines were recorded in isolated sessions to keep full control over the intonation of every line.

The film premiered in June 2024 in theaters around the world and runs 96 minutes.