Jurnee Smollett on Making Historical Dramas Like ‘The Order’ and Why She ‘Loves Disrupting S—‘ With Her Work

variety.com:

Angelique Jackson As much as Jurnee Smollett is an actor, she could also be considered an archivist — given how much of her 38-year career she’s spent capturing elements of untold history.

Smollett has been in front of the camera since she was 10 months old, but began acting in earnest when she was 5, appearing on sitcoms like “Full House” and “Hangin’ With Mr.

Cooper.” Since then, Smollett played Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Smallest Freedom Fighter” (8-year-old Sheyann Webb) in the 1999 TV movie “Selma, Lord Selma”; the sole female debater at a historically Black college in 1935 Texas in 2007’s “The Great Debaters”; a woman who escapes slavery in the 2016 series “Underground”; and a fiery Civil Rights activist fighting both societal and supernatural monsters in 2020’s “Lovecraft Country,” HBO’s acclaimed sci-fi drama for which Smollett earned her first Emmy nomination.

In her latest film, “The Order,” Smollett plays an FBI agent (a composite character named Joanne Carney) on the hunt for Bob Mathews, the leader of a white supremacist group in the 1980s Pacific Northwest with plans to overthrow the U.S.