Interviews
“YOU’D GET YOUR CAMERA SMASHED”
For the past 35 years, actress Brooke Smith has appeared in Grey’s Anatomy, Bates Motel, Interstellar, Law & Order, and Weeds, yet is best known as Catherine Martin—“It rubs the lotion on its skin"—in 1991’s Silence of the Lambs. But before her Hollywood career, Smith spent time in the center of the 1980s New York hardcore scene.
“YOU’D GET YOUR CAMERA SMASHED”
Brooke Smith discusses her time in the mid-1980s New York hardcore scene
Sam McPheeters
For the past 35 years, actress Brooke Smith has appeared in Grey’s Anatomy, Bates Motel, Interstellar, Law & Order, and Weeds, yet is best known as Catherine Martin—“It rubs the lotion on its skin"—in 1991’s Silence of the Lambs. But before her Hollywood career, Smith spent time in the center of the 1980s New York hardcore scene. In 2022, she published Sunday Matinee, a gorgeous hardcover collection of photos from this part of her life. We recently met up at the Burbank Ikea and found a suitable living room in which to have a chat.
I started going to CBGB hardcore matinees in 1987. Nobody in that scene cared about the original punk explosion of 10 years earlier. Instead, the hardcore crowd was obsessed with the previous five years of music, 1981 to 1986. Meaning, your era. But when did your era begin personally? 1983?
’83 sounds about right.
What was your first show?
The Mob.
Okay.
And Cause for Alarm.
Aha. Should have led with that.