I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress, because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn’t ever see me that way.
BETH GRANTI had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress, because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn’t ever see me that way.
BETH GRANTI’ve died so many times in so many movies. What is it about my face that people want to kill it? I’m sure they would’ve killed Kitty Farmer if they could’ve!
BETH GRANTMy agent says, “You have an audition for the next Dustin Hoffman movie, playing a pioneer woman.” And I go, “All right!” I passed Barry Levinson in the hall on the way into my audition, and I saw him do a double-take. I think I looked so determined that I got the job right then.
BETH GRANTThe Coens both give you direction, and then it’s up to you to kind of figure out the music of what they’re saying.
BETH GRANTI’m ready to do some classics. Maybe I wasn’t in the beginning. I weighed 179 pounds when I got to New York, and I had that thick Southern accent. I still talk Southern, but I can do without it.
BETH GRANTHe’s such a comic genius. I hate to use that word, because everyone throws it around, but Steve Carell is channeling something.
BETH GRANTAt Rain Man, I was 38. And before that, I had really just started working when I was 36. I was very late. So I’ve got time, right? As long as I stay healthy and eat right.
BETH GRANTI never have broken up in comedy, ever. There’s something about me that I just don’t break on camera – maybe because I’m just so cheap, and I know how expensive it is to shoot – but I broke on Sordid Lives, and I broke on The Office. Those are the only two times in my life.
BETH GRANTMaybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman’s scripts – where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at ’em, and said, “Why won’t they be a real actor?” – maybe they just knew their audience. It’s too bad.
BETH GRANTI love smoking. I miss it every day of my life. If I found out that it didn’t cause cancer, I would go out and buy, like, eight cartons right now.
BETH GRANTI thought Sissy Hickey should be really skinny and leathery and have one of those really husky voices, but Del Shores kept saying, “I wrote this part for you.” He took me to his house and showed me pictures of all his Texas relatives, and they looked exactly like my family.
BETH GRANTIf you just think Donnie Darkos a weird movie, you don’t want to think. You don’t want to feel your feelings. So yeah, I do want to shake ’em up.
BETH GRANTReality television, anybody can be a star at any minute.
BETH GRANTI built a career on my archetype, and I’m grateful, but I’m trying to stretch.
BETH GRANTJessica Tandy. Nice company! And Ruth Gordon. They worked all along. She didn’t really get any big star recognition until Driving Miss Daisy. So what if it takes me that long? Slow and steady wins the race, right? Better a tortoise than a hare.
BETH GRANTI never have compared myself to Jessica Tandy in any way, and that’s such a great role model for me to look at. I’m seriously going to put pictures of her in my dressing room and commune with her from now on, I think.
BETH GRANT