Beth Grant Quotes

There are several things iconic about Sissy Hickey character - even just sounds. Like, "Awww." People love that sound! "Awww." I actually didn't want to do the role, because I didn't think I looked like a smoker - even though I used to be a smoker.

I like the line leading up to that: "I made your daughter the lead dancer, and you're not committed!" It's how people in their own little narrow worlds get so bent out of shape over the silliest things. I've seen it all my life, especially growing up in the South - the tempest in a teapot.

To me, All About Steve movie is sweet-natured and sweet-hearted, and I can't get enough sweet-hearted movies. I want to be inspired right now. I think things are pretty tough in the world. And people at the première were loving it - I mean, loving it! So I'm so sorry to hear people saying that it is the worst movie of 2009. I don't buy it at all.

My daughter loved All About Steve movie, because she's 6 feet tall and she's different. And I got a lot of great e-mails from people who are different. I'm a gay icon. I'll just say it. That's what they say to me, so I'll accept it. I got so many e-mails saying that it meant so much to those people. My daughter said, "They didn't like it just because she didn't get the guy! If they had lived happily ever after, people would have liked that movie."

I 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.

I didn't understand Southland Tales script at all! Is there a single word to describe it? Cacophony? It's celebrity meets pornography meets politics - it's unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. And slapstick humor, communism; I mean, what doesn't it have? It's crazy. I didn't go to Cannes, but I guess the first cut was three and a half hours or something?

I love Maude Pearson character from Agel. I love that she walls her son up because he has a girlfriend! In fact, I have that clip on my reel - her walling him up and saying, "What are you going to do about that streetwalker now? You belong to me! What are you going to do?" And did you know the ghost mom has her own Angel trading card?

Patrick Swayze was risk-taking - because he not only did a transvestite, but in Donnie Darko, he played a pedophile! Talk about a risky thing for a movie star, and he jumped right in. We even shot some of those video sequences of his character out on his ranch. I mean, he opened his heart and his ranch to us. He was just an awesome guy.

Patrick Swayze had done The Outsiders already - he was certainly the star of our class - and for a big, sexy, horseback-ridin' Texan to come over and tell me that I'm beautiful, and look me right in the eye and make me accept that there's a beauty in the characters I play meant so much to me.

Patrick Swayze was in an acting class with me. We were working on Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf together, and there was this beautiful blonde who was playing Honey - and I'm playing loudmouthed Martha - and she was so gorgeous, and the two guys were flirting and having fun with her, and so I started crying. Buddy came over and said, "Don't you know that you're beautiful? Don't you know that these women are beautiful?" It meant so much to me, because he was already sort of a star.

My father died right after the movie Rain Man was released. He got to see it, then literally the day before he died, he asked Mama to take him to see it one more time - because he knew he was declining. Tom's assistant at the time told him my father died, and he wrote me a very personal note. I haven't seen him since, but you can't say anything bad about Tom Cruise to me, because anybody who takes the time to do that is very special.

Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were both so generous to me on the Rain Man set. I remember Tom was in the trailer when I said to the makeup guy, "You know, I would really like to not wear any makeup. I just have this feeling that she wouldn't have any." And Tom said, "Yeah, that's cool!"

My 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.

I was so frustrated with my whole life that I walked up this hilltop and screamed at the heavens. It was very dramatic - but then again, I am an actress - and I said, "Fine! I'll be a character actress! Just tell me what you want me to do!" I was so angry at the universe.

I was up at Big Sur with Christopher Reeve and Christine Lahti, doing this woman in a big fat-suit - Mrs. Bassett in Tennessee Williams' Summer And Smoke - and my husband was in the show too, playing Lahti's fiancée. Every night he'd be proposing to beautiful Christine Lahti, and I'd barrel onstage in this fat-suit. I hated it! But I did it, because by then I knew that that was my casting.

Milton Katselas said, "Who are you to look down your nose at Anna Magnani and Maureen Stapleton? Who do you think you are?" I was doing this kooky meditation at the time called inner-guide meditation, where you go into a cave and you have a guide, and you fly around. So I said to my inner guide, "Take me to the energy that's blocking me from accepting my casting" - because I understood it intellectually, but I didn't want to do it in my heart.

I had this great teacher, Milton Katselas, who was this loud Greek who had directed Bette Davis and Liv Ullmann, and brought Edward Albee to this country. He said, "Why do you keep trying to be a Rolex watch when you're the salt of the earth?" Except he said it much louder.

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.

I love Donnie Darko movie so much. Just before I got that script, I had been to see some European art film. I walked out of that movie and said to my husband, "That's what I want to do! I want to do an art film and take it to the edge." Within two weeks, we were getting ready to go on vacation, and my agent called.

It was probably 10 at night when I started to read Donnie Darko. I get in bed and read the first page, and I go, "Hmmm. That's interesting." Second page, "Wow." By the fourth page, my heart started to beat, and I knew. It makes me cry, because I knew I had found a classic film. You just know when you get certain material.

There's always that key to every character that lets you go to those places you need to go to. No matter how much you might hate the character, it makes you understand it.

I'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!

I grew up around people, so I know 'em, and I do like playin' 'em. I'm not religious, but I am kind of a spiritual fanatic, so maybe I understand them in that way.

Sometimes I'll say, "When Sandy Bullock and I were doing Speed - the movie, not the drug." Just in case someone's listening.

I knew Steve Carell because of Little Miss Sunshine, so I felt very comfortable with him. Maybe he always does it to guest stars, but I felt as though he was being particularly funny with me, and particularly stretching the boundaries of improvisation. He's such a comic genius. I hate to use that word, because everyone throws it around, but Steve Carell is channeling something.

I 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.

I 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.

I 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.

It's Richard Kelly's brilliance, because he led me to Donnie Darko performance. He wanted sincerity, he didn't want it to be one color, and he made me go vulnerable, and I think that's why it works. When you can get all those different colors and levels in one line. Time Out New York voted it "Best Line Of The Year" - which is crazy, because how many words is it? "Sometimes. I. Doubt. Your. Commitment. To. Sparkle. Motion." Eight words. It's crazy.

Jessica 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.

I love Fargo, I love all of them, but Miller's Crossing just happens to be my favorite. When I heard Coen brothers were doing No Country For Old Men, I thought, "This is it. This is their masterpiece. This is going to be the one, because it's going to bring every element together." I just had a feeling about it.

The Coen brothers: Of all the directors I've worked with, they're the only ones who have given me the storyboards attached to the script. It was very cool for me, because I knew when I was in close-up or if it was far away, and it also made me know that anything that happened in the edit wasn't personal. Because they edit their own movies, so they were editing it as they went.

I love Child's Play 2! That movie has a great theme: You better listen to children. That's why I wanted to do it. I was scared to do a horror movie - a blatant, studio horror movie - but I liked the script, and I thought that was such an important theme, because I don't think adults listen to children enough.

If 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.

One friend said, "Donnie Darko movie was weird!" And I thought, "Hmm. I don't think we're as good of friends as I thought." It's not like I disliked him for it; it just meant we weren't on the same page I thought we were. Because I can't imagine watching that film and not being moved to tears.

I'd much rather insult people and make 'em angry. Donnie Darko's very controversial. Not all of my friends like it. Honestly, it's almost become a test for me. If somebody says they don't like Donnie Darko, I think, "Oh, I don't know you as well as I thought I did."

Everything I've done hasn't worked out - you know, some things aren't as great as others - but I'm having so much fun, who cares? Isn't that what an artist is supposed to do? We're trying to change the world. Otherwise, why be an artist? You want to shake people up and make 'em think.

I love to take chances. I love first-time directors. I love super-low-budget movies. I've done 80-something movies, and I want to just keep experimenting. First-time directors have new, fresh ideas, and lot of times they're risking a lot to do it, so it means so much to them. They're not just hired; they have their heart on the line, because if you've gone that far, you're probably a very passionate person.

Reality television, anybody can be a star at any minute.

Tone is a very difficult thing. You can't write tone, I don't think. You can try - you certainly try. I write too, so I know I'm trying desperately to communicate to whoever's going to direct my pieces, the way I see the humor. But it's very difficult.

As much as I love being an artist, I love being a mom even more.

The brilliant costume designer Mary Zorphres had done all this research on West Texas in 1980. Every woman looked like that. At a certain age, they would get their hair cut off, let the gray go in, get that permanent, and wear those big glasses. She gave me a beanie bra so my boobs would hang down, and these old dresses. My hat's off to her, because I thought it was perfect for the movie. It was so great to have some comic relief right at that moment. No Country For Old Men is such an intense film.

The Coens both give you direction, and then it's up to you to kind of figure out the music of what they're saying.

At 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.

Maybe 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.

The book by William Goldman, Adventures In The Screen Trade, great, awesome book. He talks about this very thing - that you can't get a star to do a part that's not what their public expects. And Sandy's Bullock not like that. She's taken a lot of chances over the years. And Patrick Swayze certainly wasn't like that. But I mean, maybe that is true. Maybe that's exactly why they didn't like All About Steve.

I'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.

I've workshopped Medea where I have goddesses, and I'm naked onstage and painted gold, and talking in tongues, and the goddesses come and dress me, and Hecate arrives and fills me with the power to go kill the children so I can send them to the afterlife and do this for all women. They've never done a Medea like that. They're cheating themselves by not letting me do these roles.

I have such a great thing I want to do with Lady Macbeth - make her one of the witches - and I have this whole thing where she's very light and dressed in pink and dancing Gaelic dances and throwing roses, but then when her husband's coming home, she does incantations and pulls her hair back, puts on a black leather trenchcoat. I mean, I could tear it up if somebody would give me the chance! But do you think someone would ever let me do Lady Macbeth? I doubt it. But I'm going to keep talking about it.

I built a career on my archetype, and I'm grateful, but I'm trying to stretch.