Yeardley Smith Has Brass Balls

Yeardley Smith is primarily known as the voice of Lisa Simpson for the past twenty-five years but there is much more to her than just a great voice.  She’s a film and stage actress, she’s a writer, and she’s an active philanthropist, donating both her time and financial resources to many great causes.  She recently stopped in at the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about her work with the Grameen Foundation.  Below are excerpts from that interview.

Ron Bennington: Yeardley comes into our studio and she’s just absolutely freezing because she can only exist where people grow oranges. Everything has to be perfectly warm for her.

Yeardley Smith: I’m like a lizard. I prefer to warm myself up on a hot rock.

Ron Bennington: But you said you were from the East Coast right?

Yeardley Smith: Yes, Washington D.C.

Ron Bennington: From the District or the surrounding area?

Yeardley Smith: I grew up on Q street.

Ron Bennington: Wow that’s really unusual.

Yeardley Smith: Yeah, it is. I wasn’t born there, I was born in Paris France. But my father was a journalist for the Washington Post so we moved there when I was about 3.

Ron Bennington: How did you get into show business?

Yeardley Smith: When I was about 5 there was a woman in my neighborhood who would rally up the kids in the summers And we would lip sync to things like Oliver and My Fair Lady. She would also do this thing where you would have living portraits. And I was a portrait of a Mary Cassat painting called The Girl in the Straw Hat or something. And you’d stand there– it felt like an hour, it was probably two minutes– with music playing behind you and a spotlight on you. And it was like, “oh yeah, this is for me” (laughing).

Ron Bennington: Why isn’t there a spotlight on me all the time?

Yeardley Smith: Aaalll the time.

Ron Bennington: I think acting and sports are probably the only two places where people will go… But the funny thing is, all of us have gotten involved in both of those things as kids, but we fall off.

Yeardley Smith: Well it’s sort of survival of the fittest. It’s not for everyone.

Ron Bennington: And yet you, unlike 99 percent of the people who are in your position– you’ve had a steady gig for decades.

Yeardley Smith: No, it’s ridiculous. It’s such an anomaly. The Simpsons– we started recording our 24th Season. I mean it’s been on since the beginning of time. Since there was television. Best job in the world. It takes about six hours a week. Which now is hilarious, because I’ve started a shoe line, right, called Marche Vous, because I wanted beautiful shoes that were also comfortable and there aren’t any. So I said, I’m going to fix that. So I’m like oh this will be great! Weeeeeee I love shoes!! Woo hoo! Now I have a full-time job. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. But let me tell ya, this is like wow.

Ron Bennington: Well a) it’s the good problem, because it took off, but b) you’ve never worked an outside show business job before.

Yeardley Smith: I really was extraordinarily fortunate to support myself as an actress from day one. I didn’t get in to college, so I just went forward, cause that’s what I do. There was a lot of worry from the people around me going, “Yeardley this won’t work.” “You don’t have any connections, you have no formal training, I don’t know what you think you’re doing.” And I said, it’s okay, it will, and I’ll go forward. And then I became really successful and they said “that’s great but you can’t sustain this.” And I said it’s okay, it will, and I’ll go forward. And so the shoe business is the same thing.

Ron Bennington: Same exact thing.

Yeardley Smith: It’s run by these middle-aged straight white men.

Ron Bennington: That shouldn’t work.

Yeardley Smith: Well one presumes they’re not test driving their product. I don’t know. Live and be well if you are. But I do remember, when I said I wanted to marry beauty and comfort, they said, “that’s all well and good but you can’t use that word.” I’m sorry? What word? “Comfort. You can use any other word to describe the same, but not that word.” And I said, okay, well in deference to you, I’ll now refer to it as the c-word, so suck it.

Ron Bennington: I wanted to say this since you came in– you’re stunning. Everything about you– you have such amazing style. That’s the first thing that I noticed as you came through the door. Every little piece of jewelry that you’re wearing is just perfect.

Yeardley Smith: Thank you so much. These are my brass balls. I have two gold balls on a chain, so I call them my brass balls– which I had made.

Ron Bennington: And that’s because of your attitude?

Yeardley Smith: It is. And when my second marriage broke up I was devastated. I was wrecked, and I was with a friend of mine. And tragically her brother committed suicide about two weeks after I left my husband. And her name is Zibby. And I said to her, you know what? We need something that we can hang on to. Something to remind us that we are the women who will do the difficult things, and make the hard decisions in hard times. We need brass balls. So I had them made for us. And she has a pair and I have a pair.

Ron Bennington: And you do so much too, outside of show business. You’re here to be honored for some of your charity work. How did you get into that?

Yeardley Smith: I was on the treadmill watching Oprah, as you do, and this man named Professor Muhammed Yunus was on the show and he had just won the nobel peace prize for his work in microfinance. And microfinance is the practice of giving small loans to women, mostly in developing countries although they’re trying it here. And teaching them to be entrepreneurs so that ultimately they become be self-sustaining. And I love this model because to me a hand-up is far better and more successful than a hand out. Because if I’m your only source of revenue and something happens to me, we’re both screwed. Like now what? So I fell in love with this idea. And there’s an organization in Washington DC, called The Grameen Foundation and it’s based on Muhammed Yunus’ model of the Grameen Bank. And they work with an organization in Haiti called Fonkoze. I’ve been to Haiti three times and to Bangladesh. And long story short, Haiti was hit by three cyclones in a row, in, I think it was 2008. And I went shortly after that. And the woman who runs Fonkoze said she was having trouble hanging on to her employees because life was already so hard there, but then you have a natural disaster like that, and it’s exponentially harder. And so these educated people were like, I believe in the cause but I’m out. This is beyond. And they had lost their retirement fund because those funds had to go to reinstate the loans of the borrowers. So I reinstated the retirement fund.

Ron Bennington: Is this something that came to you just in the last few years? Or were you always involved with this kind of stuff.

Yeardley Smith: I’m a sucker for…if one of my friends have a charity I would always get involved. It sort of doesn’t matter if it’s animals or children or microfinance. It’s what speaks to you. What does it mean to you.

Ron Bennington: I know you were involved in that Prop 8 play with George Clooney.

Yeardley Smith: Oh yes. Yes, oh! I did the one in New York as well. Yeah, marriage equality. To me this is a no-brainer. I don’t even know why we’re still talking about it.

Ron Bennington: Everybody here on the east coast was very surprised.

Yeardley Smith: We were horrified. Quite frankly, I think that when people thought they were voting for Prop 8 they thought they were voting for marriage equality. The way it was worded was very confusing. Because it passed by very slim margin. So as soon as it passed you were just like What!? What just happened? A friend of mine, Dustin Lance Black said I want you to meet another guy who works with Rob Reiner. His organization is called the American Federation for Equal Rights. And his organization was trying to raise money, so I’ve given over a million dollars to support that, when we do a play, when you do the reading. Oh it infuriates me. Ohhhh grrrr.

Ron Bennington: And a lot of it has to do, I think, with the Bible. The confusion of understanding that old book and being able to pull one thing out. But I’ll say, here in New York, I don’t think I ever really got the importance of what it meant until that night when I saw people running out of their houses. I thought, yes who would vote against it? But I also didn’t feel like it was that driving of a topic until I saw how much it meant to people that night.

Yeardley Smith: And I agree with you. For a while civil union was sort of as far as we got. But if you are a same-sex couple and you have children…and the hospital says you don’t qualify for these basic rights because we don’t consider you a family, you can only imagine what that does to you on the inside. And from soup to nuts this is a bad situation.

Ron Bennington: Yet, at the same time, when you think of the progress that we’ve made within our lifetime, because I think in the 60s and early 70s just being gay was illegal in this state.

Yeardley Smith: I think up until the 80s in England it was still illegal for two men to have sex.

Ron Bennington: And yet when I think about this city, and Truman Capote or Andy Warhol and Tennessee Williams, and all of the gay people who came here from all over the country and added so much to the city…for it even to be debatable…is astounding. So, The Simpsons still going strong…and no end in sight.

Yeardley Smith: Wellllll….you know we had a recent contract negotiation which is always interesting. I will say one of the best things about being on The Simpsons is I’ve had to negotiate with Fox over the last 25 years. There’s pretty much nothing you can tell me or do to me that will surprise me. It’s made me one tough cookie. One strong cookie as one of my Italian friends says.

Ron Bennington: So you really feel like every time you’ve got to go back and convince them?

Yeardley Smith: This time in particular. This time I think when they said – we don’t need this show, we make more money when the show goes off the air and we go into second and third run syndication. So we don’t need anymore new episodes. Like it or lump it that’s the way it is. It actually seemed like they will pull it. So they gave us a 35% pay cut. And you’re welcome they said. And you know, you make a choice. Do you still want to do the job that you believe in, that also affords you a tremendous amount of opportunity in your life. If you don’t pick up on that then you’re the asshole. Right? If you don’t make the most of that. And we all agreed. We love the show. But that contract is only three years. And only two guaranteed and then they have an option to pick us up for a third. And I don’t know, maybe they will and maybe they won’t.

Ron Bennington: At the time I don’t think you realize it, but now overall just to see the extraordinary cast and just the talent of everybody on that show has been incredible.

Yeardley Smith: I have to say, we record all together in the same room like an old radio play…and to see the guys, Hank, Harry, Dan, go from voice to voice to voice– the don’t even pause. Dan doesn’t do Homer and then go back and do Grandpa when the conversation is between Homer and Grandpa. He does Homer Grandpa, Homer Grandpa, Homer Grandpa. It never gets old. Never gets old. I could watch that all day.

Ron Bennington: And never breaks, just boom boom boom.

Yeardley Smith: Never breaks. Hank the same. And I’m the only one who does one voice. Cause I always sound exactly like myself. And they made that quite clear. I’m not even allowed to be in a crowd. If Lisa Simpson is not actually in the crowd, Yeardley you’re out. (laughs) And I’m like, thanks, now I have a complex.

Ron Bennington: Thank you so much it was so much fun having you in here, I’ll see you next time through.

==================================

You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  No worries you can click here to sign up for a free trial subscription.  Find out more about Ron Bennington Interviews here.

You can follow Yeardley at her twitter account @yeardleysmith and go to www.thegrameenfoundation.org and www.fonkoze.org to find out more about the microfinance organizations Yeardley spoke about in the interview. You can also check out her shoe company at www.marchezvous.com.