Smith's feature film debut was John Huston's 1982 adaptation of the Broadway musical Annie, as one of Aileen Quinn's fellow orphans. (Additional "orphans" included Martika, April Lerman and Amanda Peterson.)

Three years later, Shawnee co-starred in two troubled-teen melodramas, Not My Kid and Crime of Innocence (both 1985). The latter (whose writers Douglas Schwartz and Michael Berk would co-create the hit series Baywatch four years later) earned her a Youth In Film Award.

Two years later, Smith co-starred in the hit 1987 comedy film Summer School (as pregnant student Rhonda Altobello). The following year, Shawnee starred with Kevin Dillon and the late Joe Seneca in a 1988 remake of the Steve McQueen classic The Blob (as Meg Penny).

Smith played a rich punk who helps John Candy locate her kidnapped sister in 1989's Who's Harry Crumb?. That same year, Shawnee co-starred with Jennie Garth and Alison Sweeney in the short-lived TV series Brand New Life. The following y