Catherine Keener Biography
Overlooked by Hollywood for not possessing a classical leading lady look, dark-haired and sharp-featured Catherine Keener took an alternative route to success, carving out her niche in independent films with a series of diverse, engaging performances that have made her one of the industry’s best-kept secrets. After graduating from college, Keener found work as a casting agent, forming a close friendship with fellow casting director Gail Eisenstadt, who encouraged Keener to pursue acting and cast her in her first film role as a cocktail waitress in “About Last Night …” (1986), exhorting Rob Lowe and Jim Belushi to “Go! Go! Go!” in their drinking contest, thus earning a Screen Actors Guild card. She made her TV debut in a failed pilot (”The Alan King Show” CBS, 1986), had a brief taste of being a regular on the short-lived cop show “Ohara” (ABC, 1987-88) and acted in two 1989 flicks, the Outward Boundish “Survival Quest” (featuring future husband Dermot Mulroney) and the unpromisingly-titled “Curse of the Corn People” (CBS), which actually involved a group of Kansans making a low-budget horror film.