Tasha Smith

Tasha Smith is an American actor, director, and producer born February 28, 1971, in Camden, New Jersey. She built a screen career through television and film, becoming especially associated with sharp, comic, and emotionally confrontational characters. Her best-known film role is Angela Williams, the outspoken hairdresser in Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010). Angela’s turbulent marriage to Marcus Williams, played by Michael Jai White, is central to the ensemble dramas, which follow four couples confronting infidelity, resentment, and friendship during group trips.

Smith returned to Angela on television in Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse, a sitcom spun off from the films. She appeared as Angela from the series debut in 2011, through its 2017 finale. Along with White, she anchored the show’s depiction of the Williamses’ marriage and their hair-salon world.

On Fox’s music-industry drama Empire, Smith played Carol Hardaway, the troubled younger sister of Cookie Lyon, played by Taraji P. Henson. Carol arrives carrying addiction and family conflicts, and Smith’s recurring performance placed her within the show’s Hardaway-Lyon family storyline. She also played the character Trina in the comedy Couples Retreat (2009), directed by Peter Billingsley, and appeared in the 2007 Tyler Perry film Daddy’s Little Girls.

In addition to acting, Smith has developed a substantial directing résumé. She has directed television episodes for series including P-Valley, BMF, Bel-Air, 9-1-1, The Chi, and Harlem. Her work as a director has moved across crime drama, music-industry storytelling, network procedural television, and comedy-drama formats. Her directorial debut was TV One’s 2017 film When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story.

Smith is also known for actor coaching. She established the Tasha Smith Actors Workshop in Los Angeles, where she has taught performers and offered training classes. Her coaching work has accompanied her own transition into directing, making performance preparation a visible part of her professional identity. In 2023, she joined the cast of Netflix’s comedy series Survival of the Thickest as Marley, a close friend of Michelle Buteau’s Mavis Beaumont. The series, created by Buteau and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, follows Mavis after a breakup disrupts her life and career in New York. Smith has continued to balance onscreen roles with episodic directing, making her work span both performance and production. Her career is defined not by one medium but by recurring collaborations with television creators, film ensembles, and working actors.