‘Elsbeth’ Guest Star J. Smith Cameron Says She Bought Her Own Anna Wintour Wig: “The Hair and Makeup Department Were Very Chill And Got a Little Kick Out of It”

By Hope Sloop

J. Smith Cameron says she was so invested in getting her Elsbeth character to look and feel right, she went ahead and purchased a wig to pitch to the team.

Attached to her guest-starring spot in the new episode, “Deadutante,” DECIDER sat down with the Succession actress to chat about playing a uniquely particular character and how her vision of a snide upper-class ball director came to life with just one accessory.

“I had this idea when I read the character; she was so affected and putting on airs, and that was so important to her. I had this idea of like, ‘What if she just wants to be Anna Wintour?'” Cameron explained. “So I just took it on myself and ordered off the internet an inexpensive, short little bob wig. It happened to fit and kind of look kind of credible, so I brought it to work with me; the hair and makeup department were very chill and got a kick out of it.”

Of course, that was just the start of finding the character of Izzy Langford, whose trauma from her time as a debutante several decades ago comes back to haunt her in the present day, resulting in Cameron’s character sending a sword through the heart of her nemesis. To put together the pieces that make up the rest of her character, Cameron says she gives all-due-credit to Elsbeth costume designer, Daniel Lawson, who brought her to life with matching sets and statement necklaces that scream upper crust of society.

There’s also the not-so-small matter of her distinctive way of speaking. Anyone who watches the episode knows that Cameron’s voice in real life sounds wildly different than how Izzy Langford speaks in the show. Is she British? Is she just a snobby American? If you found yourself asking those questions during the episode, Cameron’s work here is done.

“I thought, ‘Well, what if she has got a transatlantic kind of faux English accent?'” she shared of finding he right voice for this character. “I had run that [by the team] before I even had the Anna Wintour idea. She’s [Wintour] English, but she’s also lived in the States a lot, so her accent is somewhat subdued. I thought it was important not to be 100 percent English because the whole thing was an affectation.”

An affectation, indeed. As viewers find out as the episode progresses, it’s her character’s deep desire to find a spot in this world she was not born into that brings her to murder, killing the man who had embarrassed and harassed her years prior, finally getting her revenge, but being caught by Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston) in the process.

“I’ve known Carrie for a really long time, we were both on True Blood, although she was a regular on it. But I was kind of a recurring character for a while,” Cameron said, referencing her own role as Melinda Mickens in the HBO vampire drama. Sadly, at the time, she and Preston didn’t get to work with each other, which is what made the offer to come aboard the Elsbeth train even more enticing.

Cameron added, “It was a really fun show to work on, just all the way around.”

Cameron’s episode of Elsbeth is now streaming on Paramount+. New episodes of Elsbeth air Thursdays on CBS and stream the next day on Paramount+.

Paramount+ offers two subscription plans, Essential and Premium. The ad-supported Essential plan costs $8.99/month, while the ad-free Premium plan (which comes with Showtime titles and live CBS) costs $13.99/month.