What, if anything, did you know about Mormonism before accepting this role?
I wasn’t that versed on Mormonism. I knew about Brigham Young University and Brigham Young but I didn’t know anything about Joseph Smith at all. Strangely, I had read a small blurb about Jane Manning James. It’s kind of uncanny. It was like, “I know about this woman.” I had encountered a small inkling of who she is in written form on the web two years prior. It didn’t click for me until I was sitting in a hotel on a short film — before I came to do “Jane and Emma” — that I did encounter her. I was flabbergasted. Then you start delving into it. They sent me a crazy amount of Google documents. It was slightly overwhelming. I didn’t feel bombarded, though. I felt like if I know her in this little bit, I can go forward and step into these shoes for this time.
I knew nothing of Emma Smith.
‘You can’t walk away from these roles’: ‘Jane and Emma’ star knew little about black Latter-day Saint trailblazer, but she’ll never forget her (Salt Lake Tribune)
