38 | MARCH 19 • 2020

Growing Up

Indebted co-star Jessy Hodges,
a Huntington Woods native,
comes by her talent naturally.

SAM BLAKE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
J

essy Hodges has come a
long way from “the per-
formance couch” — the
Victorian-style four-seat-
er that sat in the living
room of her Huntington
Woods childhood home
and served as seating for a
makeshift stage.
Hodges, 33, now lives
with her husband in Los
Angeles and co-stars in
the NBC comedy series
Indebted, which premiered
Feb. 6. Although she
describes that bygone piece
of furniture in unflattering
terms — “It was pea green,
with a lot of stitching … I
didn’
t really like it; sorry,
mom and dad!”— its mem-
ory still elicits a twinkle.
“It was opposite a great
stage, kind of like this,
” she
said, pointing to a small
rectangle of bare wooden
floor against the wall in her
current living room.
It was across from that
old couch where Hodges
would practice mono-
logues and rehearse songs
for the roles she had at
Stagecrafters in Royal
Oak and at Berkley High
School, and where she
would film audition tapes
for Interlochen Arts Camp.
Her mother, Ellen
Sandweiss, who graduated
from Groves in 1977, is

also an actress, perhaps
best known for her role in
the 1981 Michigan-made
cult classic film Evil Dead.
She stoked Jessy’
s interest
in acting. Sandweiss now
lives in Asheville, North
Carolina, where Jessy and
her younger sister Ali were
born.
“My mom is naturally
a performative person,
”
Hodges said. “For her, it’
s
almost like a currency;
she deals in the language
of performance, so it was
always a part of our house-
hold.
”
Jessy Hodges’
s passion
for acting and the arts
was further fueled by her
extended family and their
Jewish heritage.
“I’
m very close to my
mom’
s side of the family;
I’
m still very close to my
Bubbie Miriam,
” Hodges
said.
Miriam Sandweiss lives
in Beverly Hills, Michigan.
“She and my mom and my
mom’
s sisters were all really
into the arts. There was a
big emphasis on the arts
from my Jewish side of the
family, and I don’
t think
that’
s a coincidence.
”
As a kid at Workmen’
s
Circle, a secular, progres-
sive Jewish cultural orga-
nization serving Metro

Arts&Life
tv

“Being a Jew from Michigan is very
fundamental to who I am.”

— JESSY HODGES

Jessy Hodges on set in her Indebted role as Joanna

PHOTO COURTESY JESSY HODGES/NBC

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