Blount was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to Glen Roscoe Blount and Margaret Louise Martin and raised in Jacksonville, Arkansas. After graduating from Jacksonville High School and studying theatre at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Valdosta State University in Georgia, she landed several small television roles. She returned to college in 1986, this time at San Francisco State University, where she completed her degree in Theater Arts and spent the '86/'87 academic year competing on SFSU's Forensics (Speech and Debate) Team. In the fall of 1987, she was cast as the female lead in the American Conservatory Theater's highly successful revival of the musical Hair.