'Dollface' actor Beth Grant says Cat Lady the most positive character she's ever played; story about women restoring friendships
Hulu's 'Dollface', created by Jordan Weiss, will mix reality and magic realism and a lot of that magic will be provided by Beth Grant's "Cat Lady" character. After Kat Dennings' character, Jules, is dumped by her boyfriend, she slips into a surreal dream space.
This is when she meets Grant's character, a cat-headed lady, driving a busload of broken-hearted women like her. In an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), Beth Grant spoke about her role as the "cat who acts with Kat".
"My agent called and said 'this one is a little different'," said Grant, who loved the script from the minute she read it. "I am like her [Jules'], not spirit animal, but spirit Cat Lady, I would say. Sort of like a guardian angel. So I continue to give advice and counseling, guide her on her way into being a feminist and egalitarian. And toward recreating these friendships with women. She has taken this cat form to help Jules. She is a fairy godmother. She represents our better angels who lead us on the way. She is the most positive character that I have ever played, I would say."
The veteran actor agreed 'Dollface' as a show resembled, tonally, Brian Fuller's 'Pushing Daisies' and 'Wonderfalls' - shows Grant was also a part of. "The bright, saturated colors and magic realism. That is what got me so excited about the pilot. I thought about Brian [Fuller] because there is a scene where she [Jules] is trying to connect with the women at work and all the cool girls are sitting at the lunch table and she starts to sit down with them and the table flies away. And then she goes to sit down again and the table backs up further. And I thought 'this is fantastic - I am going to be a cat and the table is moving'. When I read that I felt they are really onto something special here."
Speaking about the show's themes of female friendships, Grant poured her heart out: "I think so many of us women, and I know I'm not alone in this, we get into a relationship and we sort of let go of our women friends. It is a sad thing. Not that we give them up altogether but you distance yourself a little bit because you are so wrapped up in your new love interest. So this is a story of a young woman who finds her way back to these friendships. She never stopped loving these women and they never stopped loving her but they have to recreate themselves and find each other. So it is pretty beautiful."
Her best "Cat Lady" advice is to "write that email, make that phone call, take that visit, go back to where you came from and see those friends you love. Chances are if you loved them then, you'll still love them now. And even the women who are in your circle now, take the time to have that lunch, that coffee, that brunch, that cocktail and just catch up. When the chips are down, those are the people who will cover you the most."
Speaking about her own female friends, Grant said "At my age, my women friends are super important. And there are a couple [to whom] I had to find my way back to, especially my friends from high school. I had a reunion last year when I was making a movie in my hometown in North Carolina and I met friends I hadn't met in 50 years and it was like no time [had] passed. So friendships never die but it takes a little work to keep them alive. And it is to our benefit because there is so much comfort there."
Even though the show celebrates female friendships, Grant says it is balanced and special enough for the men to get hooked too. "The guys are going to like it too. He [Jules' ex-boyfriend] develops a lot more as we go along. We learn a lot more about him and their relationship and he is not judged harshly. He is very human, as they all are. Even Jules is not a goody-two-shoes who is injured. She is not a victim. Kat [Dennings] is playing her very realistically."
Grant commended Hulu on "taking a chance with a show like 'Dollface' with magic realism and surrealism and this Cat [Lady]. I think Cat Lady landed in the right place."
Grant also felt "very fortunate" to be working Kat Dennings who she described "as fabulous as I thought she would be. Very down to earth, very funny, very supportive and just a wonderful star. As a supporting actor, I've worked with so many people and she's the kind that you would just spend the rest of your life with, if you could. It has really been a great experience."
While she has featured as a voice artist in films like 'Rango' and the TV series 'King of the Hill' in other animation projects, the part on 'Dollface' required intensive VFX (visual effects) work, which was a first for Grant.
"It was all computer-generated. But I really looked so strange on the set, I don't know how Kat [Dennings] acted with me and how people talked to me because I had about 25 black dots all over my face, my hair was slicked back, greased back so that they can do all the animation for the VFX. They had to do all these strange things like after every scene, they'd shoot me from all 360 degrees, still-photography of me in 360 [degrees] and then they would have to do a bunch of special clapboards at the very beginning. It was fascinating. I'd never been through anything like it and [now] I am a cat [who is a] Cat Lady."
Grant has been involved in some cult films (and scenes) that fans can't stop raving about. Chief among them is her "sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion" dialogue from 'Donnie Darko', an absurd line, delivered with such character-driven sincerity by Grant as 'Kitty Farmer', it still resonates.
"They love it and I love it. It's so funny that a simple line that Richard Kelly wrote would become such a phenomenon. It was pretty fantastic. I wonder if there is anything on 'Dollface' that will catch on like that because I've got some pretty good feminist lines on that," Grant said.
We can't wait to hear them with the show's 10 episodes airing on Hulu November 15. Get ready for a weekend of binge-watching.