Beth Grant

Posted on September 7, 2009 at 3:51 pm

Two awful movies released last week, “Extract” and “All About Steve,” give me an opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics, character actors. One of the best appears in both of them, the wonderful Beth Grant. Character actors are those people who seem vaguely familiar, but don’t often get mentioned in reviews or photographed on red carpets. They play the family members, best friends, thorns in the side, co-workers, explainers, or, often, the fiances/fiancees who get dumped so that the big romantic arc of the movie can reach a successful conclusion.

Beth Grant works steadily and often plays high-strung, picky types, as in “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Donny Darko.” Her appearances in these two most recent films provide some of the very few bright spots. I especially liked seeing her in “All About Steve” in a less straight-laced role.

Here is one of her most famous scenes, from “Donnie Darko:”

I was lucky enough to meet her at the Critic’s Choice awards in January of 2007. I made a short video of her dancing at the party afterward. She was gracious and completely charming.

So, cheers, Beth Grant! I hope you’re in a better movie next time, but know whether it is as good as “Donnie Darko” or as awful as “All About Steve,” you will never let me down.

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Actors Great Characters

Molly Ringwald Remembers John Hughes

Posted on August 12, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Molly Ringwald has a touching tribute to John Hughes in today’s New York Times. While she had not spoken to the very private writer-director for 20 years, she and co-star Anthony Michael Hall spoke on the phone about the way he had influenced and inspired them both.

I still believe that the Hughes films of which both and I were a part (specifically “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club”) were the most deeply personal expressions of John’s. In retrospect, I feel that we were sort of avatars for him, acting out the different parts of his life — improving upon it, perhaps. In those movies, he always got the last word. He always got the girl.

Ringwald gave one of the best performances of the 1980’s in “Sixteen Candles” as the girl whose family was so caught up in her sister’s wedding that they forgot her birthday. At a time of life when most people are protective, internal, and very concerned about looking cool, Hughes coaxed her to show her vulnerability but also to create a character who knew who she was. Ringwald writes about how he gave her confidence.

John saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. He had complete confidence in me as an actor, which was an extraordinary and heady sensation for anyone, let alone a 16-year-old girl. I did some of my best work with him. How could I not? He continually told me that I was the best, and because of my undying respect for him and his judgment, how could I have not believed him?

Thanks to Laine Kaplowitz for bringing this to my attention.

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Meryl’s accents

Posted on August 11, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Slate has put together a magnificent compilation of some of Meryl Streep’s best accents but what I think of when I watch this is the astonishing range of the performances behind them. It is almost impossible to imagine that it is the same person playing the steely nun, the Holocaust survivor, the Australian mother accused of killing her child, the Danish writer, the barfly. Look at the difference between her portrayals of two women with Irish accents, one Irish, one Irish American. The stunning achievement of her performance as Julia Child is not the accent, or even her ability to appear to add six inches of height, but the way she creates a complete and true character within the larger-than-life and very caricature-able personal characteristics so familiar to so many people. It is a clever trick of writer/director Nora Ephron to include in “Julie & Julia” a clip of Dan Ackroyd’s “Saturday Night Live” parody of Child’s television persona as a compelling contrast to the subtle and endearing character Streep is able to create from the same raw material. Charlie Rose had a marvelous interview with Ephron and Streep about the film, where Ephron said that two of the movie’s best moments, so immediate and effective that both appear in the trailer, were both improvised by Streep. I was also very interested that Streep said she found it liberating when she decided her job was not to re-create the actual historical figure of Julia Child but to portray Child the way she was seen by blogger Julie Powell half a century later. This enabled her to bring in to the portrayal not just Child’s mannerisms but Streep’s own mother’s expansive and generous sense of joy.

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Interviews about ‘Adam’ — Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne

Posted on August 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

Hugh Dancy plays the title role in “Adam,” the story of a man with Asperger Syndrome, a form of social dyslexia that is on the autism spectrum. As the movie begins, Adam’s father has just died and he must learn to function on his own. Rose Byrne plays Beth, his new neighbor, who finds Adam’s inability to say anything but the literal truth an appealing quality because of her own losses and disappointments.

Hugh, one thing that really struck me in your performance was your walk, which really communicated a lot about the character. How did that develop?

It was a less conscious process than you might imagine. I never walked in my apt seven different ways to try to develop the right one. It was more learning the ways in which people are and are not tactile, being aware of the feeling of certain clothing, observation, obviously, and instinct. The first scene we filmed was the first one in the movie, the scene at my father’s grave. I waited until the camera was rolling and then had to walk away.

I was also impressed with your American accent and way of speaking — very different from the American accent you did in “The Jane Austen Book Club.”

It was as much about figuring out the voice as the accent. What I worked on was the delivery and tonality that is fairly typical of that condition. Getting that right and getting the rhythms right is what really mattered.

Tell me about what made you want to do this film.

What drew me to it was the way the character was treated, as a character as a bunch of symptoms. He is not labeled, until a good third of the way into the film, so you get to know him before you hear what his diagnosis is.

I understand that you and your fiancee, Claire Danes, have now both played characters with Asperger Syndrome.

She plays Temple Grandin in an HBO biopic. I had already finished this film before she took the role, so we shared research and we discussed both characters with each other.

***

Rose, Adam is such an unusual and fascinating character that it must have been a challenge to make Beth and her concerns carry as much weight in the story. How did you make that work?

Beth had a crappy relationship with guys and a father who was overbearing and larger than life. Adam was the antithesis of all the people she was exposed to. And it was important that the romance took a while. That helped to make her role in the story stronger.

I was very interested in the way Beth’s clothes helped to convey her character. How did you work with the costume designer to determine what would best tell her story?

We talked about it a lot. Alysia Raycraft designed the costumes and she jumped at the chance to be creative with Beth and a little eccentric with the clothing. Beth favors vintage clothing, second hand things. We are a little surprised when we see how wealthy her parents’ home is because her clothes and apartment show that she has eschewed her middleclass-ness. A lot of the clothes were mine. Prada heels weren’t in the budget!

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Interview: AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig of ‘Witch Mountain’

Posted on August 3, 2009 at 3:58 pm

The young stars of Race to Witch Mountain talked to me about making the movie, a re-imagining of the Disney classic, Escape to Witch Mountain, about a brother and sister with extraordinary powers. AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig could not have been more fun to talk to — they were both so bright, engaged, polite, curious, and excited about the film. It was easy to see why they work together so well on screen. They have an effortless chemistry, a shared perspective, and great chemistry. When they assured me that they were the best of friends, I believed it.

One of the big challenges of making this movie had to be acting as though you could really see all of the effects that were not added in until later. How did you know what to visualize and where to look?

AnnaSophia: Andy was really great about explaining everything, all the visuals. And a lot of it was there — the only green screen work we did was in the cab.

You had to play characters who looked like human children but in reality were aliens for whom everything on Earth was new and strange. How do you create those characters?

Alexander: It was a really good opportunity for both of us because we had creative freedom to sculpt our own characters. No one really knows what aliens are like so we got to form our own characters.

Did you coordinate with each other to make sure that your characterizations were consistent?

Alexander: We became super-close. Since we were playing not just aliens from the same planet but brother and sister, we had to have to have similar qualities. So we would share our ideas. And then she just shut me down whenever I suggested anything! (laughs)

AnnaSophia: We would go over stuff and talk about it with each other. And his suggestions were great!

How do you create that feeling of excitement and urgency?

AnnaSophia: That is part of what we do as actors. And it is one thing Andy was great about, reminding us to keep our energy up, that you don’t know these these people are following you. Alexander was great about that, helped me keep focused on the fact that we were running for our lives.

Tell me about working with Duane Johnson! I’ll bet he is a lot of fun.

Alexander: Working with Duane is a joy. He is honestly a phenomenal guy, like an older brother to us. It was an inspiration to work with someone who came from so little, achieved so much, and is still such a genuine guy, such a professional.

Who are the actors who inspire you?

AnnaSophia: Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman — I want to go to university like her — Scarlett Johansson, Leonardio DiCaprio isincredible.

Alexander: I agree on all of her choices! Meryl Streep is phenomenal, Leonardo DiCaprio is truly inspirational, a phenomenal actor, Johnny Depp is an amazing amazing actor, unreal, Brad Pitt is another one I admire.

Tell me about Andy Fickman, the director. I saw him at Comic-Con and really enjoyed his enthusiasm.

Alexander: Andy is great — it’s like a toy store exploded in his office. He knows how to surround you in the environment of the story and makes you believe in the project.

Do you believe that there is life on other planets?

AnnaSophia: We have such a large universe, there must be something out there.

Alexander: I totally agree, the options and imagination are limitless, we can’t be the one planet out of all these billions to have life.

I have one copy of the DVD to give away to the first person who writes me at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Witch Mountain” in the subject line. Tell me why you like this movie!

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