Victim plays key role in kidnap docu-drama
BEVERLY HILLS, California — It was 15 years ago that the teenager Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home in Utah in the middle of the night. For nine months she was held captive by an ersatz holy man and his wife and subjected to torture, rape and attempts at brainwashing.
The true version of that ordeal will be revealed in a docu-drama premièring on Lifetime Saturday. Unlike earlier attempts, this project, I Am Elizabeth Smart, arrives with Smart’s participation and her blessings. She not only serves as a producer, but also provides the show’s narration.
“When I got home, I swore up and down that I was never going to write a book, I was never going to do a movie. I wanted it all to disappear,” says Smart, sharply dressed in a black pantsuit and white shirt, her face burnished with rosy cheeks.
“I wanted it all to go away, and honestly, I think that’s a pretty natural response. And for years I felt that way,” she says.
“But little by little, I started to become more involved in advocacy. And I started meeting more survivors and meeting other people who had gone through similar things. And as I got older and I became more involved, until eventually it’s kind of my world now. I realized that I have an opportunity. I have a unique opportunity to share my story because there are so many other survivors out there who struggle every day because they feel like they are alone.”
Smart felt desperately alone when Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, imprisoned the 14-year-old in a mountain campsite where they sometimes forced her into a pit covered with boards or chained her to a tree.
Smart says that throughout the incarceration, her religion and family background helped fortify her. “I grew up in a conservative Christian home. And having had 14 years of a wonderful family, of coming from a very secure background, having been taught from my parents from as far back as I can remember, to all of a sudden being taken, being told that God commanded them to hurt me, God had been commanded to do all these terrible things to me, that was just sort of night and day for me,” she says, her long, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders.
“So it never changed my view on God because the 14 years prior to that, I’d always been told: ‘You’ll know a person by their actions. No matter what they say, if they’re a good person, they’ll be doing good things.’ And these people weren’t good. They were hurting me. So, clearly, they weren’t people of God. So that’s, fortunately, how I was able to kind of maintain the separation.”
In the film, Smart is played by 20-year-old British actor Alana Boden. Skeet Ulrich, who portrays the demonic Mitchell, says he was tormented by doubts before filming began. “He was a very complicated guy to figure out, and I had nightmares every night,” says Ulrich, who has starred in projects such as As Good as It Gets, The Newton Boys and Jericho.