Cinema Hype

So, say you’re a sweet little girl, a beauty-pageant contestant who only wants to do right by her recently-dead grandpa. No, wait. You’re a working mother of three whose house has just been partially crushed by a piece of a passing airplane, and you’re having just a little bit of stress at home. Or maybe you’re just a cowboy running from a serial killer (you know, as you do). It doesn’t really matter. Whatever the situation, this much is sure: Beth Grant does not like you.

I hear you. “I don’t know any Beth Grant,” you say.

Yes, you do. Beth Grant is the kind of “Hey, it’s that guy chick!” that keeps on giving—she’s everywhere, she’s been everywhere, and she’s going to be everywhere (nine movies in 2009, according to the Source of All Knowledge). We at CH can hardly think of a character actor with as much satisfying ubiquity and the same kind of consistent casting: who else specializes in the disapproving, the judgmental, and the rural, and plays them all with such palpable glee? We at CH love her sense of humor—absent in her characters but always present just below the surface—and the fact that her career is on an upswing. Because, really, who doesn’t love the condescending and the downtrodden, when they’re packaged so perfectly?

Here are some of the highlights of (occasionally sympathetic) Grantian disapproval:

Rain Man: Grant first appears in a major motion picture here, playing the illustrious “Mother at Farm House.” A lot of her roles are of this variety: Laundry Lady. Waitress’s Mother. Motherly Secretary. Or else she’s Lil, Loretta, Dorene, or Cora Mae. You could name a whole passel of Depression-era orphans after this filmography.

Donnie Darko: If you’re familiar with Donnie and his family (and if you aren’t, get thee to Netflix), you’re already thinking of best line in the movie, and arguably in her career. Say it with me, now: “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!”

Little Miss Sunshine: Pageant Official Jenkins refuses to let Olive Hoover into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, thereby gaining the hatred of Olive fans everywhere. Casting directors take notice, apparently; film sightings of Grant go way up from this point on. Apparently being a vindictive shrew pays off. (Who knew?)

No Country for Old Men: So maybe the inherent disapproval in this role is a little bit justified. Daughter takes up with potentially shifty cowboy and, without really saying anything explicit about it, ends up running from the scariest man of 2007. We’ll give her this one: maybe Carla Jean should have just stayed home.

So that’s it. That’s how you build an extensive filmography spanning three decades, with the work only flowing faster as you age. You glare, make implications, and leave in a huff. And if you do it just right, everyone will hate/love you for it. Point taken.

Beth Grant, Rain Man, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country for Old Men, Donnie Darko, character actors