Hey, It's That Lady: Redux

You may or may not remember this post. Well, I've got another movie to add to the list. On the plane ride back from Barcelona, I was watching Crazy Heart and lo and behold, it's Beth Grant. She played some random woman in the bar that Bad Blake was playing in, and she flirted with him, and they slept together. And we never heard from her again. She was probably in the movie for three total minutes (her character doesn't even get a last name in the credits).

Her acting resume might be a mile long and spans almost 25 years, but what continues to make her so special is that she's still just "that lady". She never really has important roles. She continues to play roles that are often one step above playing an extra. She must turn down any sort of role that would require her to be on camera for more than 15-20 minutes. Or maybe she's functionally illiterate and she doesn't want too much dialogue...I hope that's not the case, otherwise I'd be an asshole.

How does this woman not just scream "Leading Lady" to you?!

Hey, It's That Lady!

Beth Grant.

This lady is everywhere. She seems to just randomly pop up in several movies and TV shows I've seen. It seems like she's been in just about everything. I bet nearly everyone has seen her in something. Despite her making an appearance in everything, I didn't even know her name (I had to look it up). She rarely has a role in a movie that brings on more than a couple of lines. You rarely remember her character's name -- that is, if she has one; sometimes she's the "lady in the diner". A lot of times her character doesn't have a last name. She's one of those actors that is so hard to describe to other people because you don't know her name and she mostly has small or obscure roles. People don't usually remember who played bit roles. But then if you show her picture, I imagine people will go, "Oh! Hey, it's that lady! She was in _____."

But, seriously, she pops up in everything. To name a few:

She was in Rain Man - She was the mother at the farmhouse that let Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman watch TV.

The Wizard - She was a worker at the diner.

Speed - One of the passengers. The hysterical one.

To Wong Foo - One of the townspeople. The drunk.

A Time to Kill - The mother of the racist that Samuel L. Jackson kills.

Donnie Darko - Conservative bitch/teacher

Six Feet Under - The evangelical lady that thinks rapture is coming and gets hit by a car

Little Miss Sunshine - The beauty pageant director

No Country for Old Men - Carla Jean's mom

The Office - Dwight's former babysitter/date at Michael and Jan's dinner party.

And then I just saw a trailer for Extract and she's in that movie as well.

She is omnipresent.