She's not one to make a fuss: 'Marjorie Prime's' Lois Smith makes a mark on stage and screen in her own low-key way.

Walking through a driving blizzard last January, the actress Lois Smith took the arm of an agent and posed a directional question.

"So is this where I should step?" Smith asked as her foot hovered above a treacherous curb in the old town of Park City, Utah, during the Sundance Film Festival. "It seems like the most direct way to go."

Smith has been following that credo for most of her career. She has plunged ahead through changes in the entertainment industry and the rises and falls of more boldfaced names, quietly stealing scenes in American film classics like "East of Eden," "Five Easy Pieces" and "Fried Green Tomatoes" and subtly dominating stage productions of "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Trip to Bountiful."

And she has continued hurtling forward even in the more