Off Camera with Sam Jones

You can almost time it. When a hometown kid arrives, the “we knew her when” pieces aren’t far behind. Shortly after The Help made Octavia Spencer famous, The Birmingham News interviewed Jefferson Davis High School guidance counselor Mrs. Evelyn Moore. “Whatever she did, she did it well and she was never shy. You knew she just had it…there was something about Octavia that stood out and everyone knew she would be something.” Evelyn Moore knew it. The Help writer/director Tate Taylor knew it. What took the rest of us so long? Octavia Spencer graduated ol’ Jefferson Davis in 1988. She was one of seven kids raised by her mom Dellsena Spencer, who worked as a maid and died when Spencer was a teenager. She went on to Auburn University, where you might be surprised to learn she did not study to become an RN, considering it’s a job she’s done between 30 and 40 times on screen, along with an almost equal number of largely nameless cashiers and security guards. Spencer actually majored in English with a double minor i