When you’re a serious actress and are handed a page-turning script that reads like your own biography, there’s no  suppressing the impulse to set everything else aside for a role that so closely mirrors your own experiences.

That is the situation Kellita Smith — who became a household name thanks to five seasons portraying the long-suffering Wanda on the “Bernie Mac Show” — found herself in when director Denise Dowse asked her to read “One Woman, Two Lives,” playwright Alretha Thomas’ study of the dual realities lived by a successful preacher’s wife. Her familiarity with the material “made me bump it up above everything else I was reading at the time,” Smith said in a recent interview with The Wave, in which she opened up on topics ranging from her personal growth as an actress, to the lingering emotion she feels over Mac’s death nearly one year ago. “I was immediately drawn to the role. “It was as if Alretha knew me, my past, and my journey to get here.”

Having been in rehearsals for several weeks — the play opens July 17 at L.A.’s The Imagined Theatre — 2009 finds Smith savoring the “colorful journey” unique to stage performance that actors cannot find in any other medium. Interested in knowing just how closely Smith’s life resembles that of her character, Samantha Cooke, and why she is listed on the playbill as inhabiting two roles? “We will just leave a few things,” she says coyly, “to be revealed in the show.”

How did you get involved in “One Woman, Two Lives?”
I was approached by Denise Dowse, director of the piece. She asked me to take a look at the piece, she said she felt that the role was very juicy, which was her wonderful adjective … and I was immediately drawn … the character displays a myriad of emotions which is only an actress’ dream, but you only get roles like this once in a while, unless you’re someone like Meryl Streep, so the opportunity to be able to display two lives in one performance, is  incredible — it also felt like Alretha knew my past.

What has your new stage role taught you about your love for the theater?
As an actor, theater is really for the actor. With film you become a star, with TV you can afford a living. The wonderful thing about the character in a stage performance is that it allows me to go places where TV and film may not … it’s like a sandbox. I get to do layers of comedy, layers of emotions that move me, that remind me, and hopefully, through the course of the journey of the piece, it does the same for the audience.

You say Samantha Cooke reminds you of you. What does she remind you of?
Through the course of the journey, I’m sure it’s even more clear, that I miss theater. I miss the characters allowing me to kind of bring forth some things that have happened in my past, that I haven’t been able to share, so the secret I will be having, is that some of these moments on the stage, are very real for me. From the reinventing of oneself to the moving toward the light, when you’re given the opportunity to really feel and discover the sense of what God intended your life to be, that’s an ongoing quest in my life right now.

There appears to be a “Preacher’s Wife” twist somewhere in “One Woman, Two Lives.”
It’s similar, but quite different. Theater allows one a different type of ride, it’s a different type of journey, a different type of unfolding of emotions and in the writing, you can go to different places, whereas in television and film, it may be kind of tame, in comparison. What I can say is that in the show there is a man who comes into everyone’s life, just like in “Preacher’s Wife,” where he ends up changing everyone’s life for ever more, and the character, Melvin played by Billy Mayo, plays it in very kind of twisted way. … The wonderful thing about this piece in the writing, is what Alretha cleverly did, is that she brought in some real gritty things that are very real to, and resonate real to me and to others in the play, and I think it will do the same for the audience.

Why is it so hard to find these types of stories in television or the movies?
I think it has a lot to do in that with theater you have license to take more of a colorful journey. In television, you have corporate minds that kind of orchestrate or delegate what the viewers should be privy to seeing because advertisers are involved … so therefor the creativity on the writers part starts to become dictated … but in theater you have the license to really connect with the journey and the ride. In theater it should be a ride. When you get off, when you leave, you should really feel like you went somewhere.

It’s been nearly a year since his passing. How did Bernie Mac help you grow as an actress?
Yes, it will be a year in August. He — you’re going to make me emotional here, it’s OK though, I can talk through it. Bernie Mac was an amazing person. If you’ve ever been in his presence, you know that you grow from him when you walk away from him as a person. He definitely gave that as a gift. He also gave as a gift for me to grow in the arena of comedy.  I will, since his passing, get my start in stand-up as well, that was something that we were working on before he passed. Now I feel like I need to do it … and you’re the first person to get this little secret, in that aspect, I will be doing stand up and it has a lot to do with the connection I had with him. So yes, he helped me to grow.

You had the gift of working side-by-side for many years. How did he influence you aside from encouraging you to try your hand at stand up comedy?
You know what, I absolutely give permission to allow him to live through me. That’s part of the reason why I really feel like it’s my duty to get on stage, because it’s what he wanted to me do, and to do what I’ve been dormantly doing, and that’s how it started. He saw me frequently entertaining extras over on the side of the set all the time, why because when I started in this business, I was an extra too, and I have always felt extras are treated so wrong, that they were just atmosphere and that’s how they were treated. But I’m not like that, and neither was Bernie. Like him, I always feel the need to connect, so that’s why I don’t treat people that way. I’m always talking to everybody the same, I and sometimes I like to joke about people, and he caught me doing it several times. So he would say, “Kee,” — that’s what he would call me — “you’re, you’re a comedian.” I would tell him, Oh no, I’m just a support role player. And he would say, ‘No Kee, that’s what you do to make a living … Kee you have a gift, you have to do this.” And so in that, I will allow his presence, his energy, his truth to live on through me as I stand up and test that mic.

Have you and Denise Dowse known one another for years? How did she know this role would speak to your truth?
Denise is very special. I think all directors are very special in that way, when they have that third eye that works for them. I may have been in our social interactions that she probably got glimpses of the character through me, so she thought let’s pull that, let’s allow people to see what you really have in you. So far in my resume, the characters that I’ve played are very safe and sophisticated, except for some action and drama that I’ve done. But for the past 5 to 7 years, the characters I’ve done on TV and film have been sophisticated, fun roles. Samantha Cooke is more dynamic; there are more layers, there are more dimensions, it has more grit, more vibrant color that an actress savors to eat and spit out, Actresses like Jessica Lange get roles like this, actresses like Meryl Streep and Judy Dench, women like these get these roles, so I’m really excited.

After “Seven Pounds,” Will Smith changed how he read scripts. Is this a new trend you see among your comtemporaries in Hollywood?
I think, as you continue to learn more about the gift of what it means to be an actor, and you feel more of the privilege, then you start to feel more of the duty. As you accumulate a certain amount of dollars, and a certain amount of respect, then you have more commission to make those kinds of choices, so it’s wonderful that Will has gotten to that place, But for some of us, during our own journeys until we get there, there will be times when we have to play the business side of it in a certain way that isn’t truly reflective of how we feel inside. But as we climb and continue to climb, we can participate more and more in those moments and those scripts and producing films that resonate in that way. I think what we’re starting to see more of as a society is that, as a society, we are more engaging and more caring to one another, and so we see our work as a duty to one another, to service each other in the images that we portray.

“One Woman, Two Lives” opens July 17 at The Imagined Theatre, 5615 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles through August 23. For more information, call (866) 468-3399.