Catherine Keener Biography

Catherine Keener (Catherine Ann Keener) is an American actress. Keener has been twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles as Maxine Lund in Being John Malkovich (1999) and Harper Lee in Capote (2005).

She also appeared in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Into the Wild (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008), and also Get Out (2017), which were all well received by critics. She is the muse of director Nicole Holofcener, having appeared in each of her first five films. Keener appeared in each of director Tom DiCillo’s first four films, and also three films directed by Spike Jonze.

Keener attended Monsignor Edward Pace High School. She then joined Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts. She majored in American Studies, enrolling in a theater course. Keener’s first theatrical production was the Wendy Wasserstein play Uncommon Women and Others, during her junior year at Wheaton graduating with her B.A in 1983.

10 Quick Facts About Catherine Keener

1. Name: Catherine Keener
2. Age: 59 years old as of 2018
3. Birthday: 23 March
4. Zodiac Sign: Aries
5. Height: Average
6. Nationality: American
7. Occupation: Actress
8. Marital Status: Divorced
9. Salary: Under review
10. Net worth: $8 million

Catherine Keener Age

How Old Is Catherine Keener? Catherine Ann Keener was born on March 23, 1959 in Miami, Florida, U.S. She is 59 years old as of 2018.

Catherine Keener Family

Keener was born to Evelyn (née Jamiel) and Jim Keener, a manager of a mattress store in Hialeah, Florida as the third of five children. Ann is of Irish descent on her paternal side and of Lebanese descent on her maternal side. Ann was raised in Hialeh as a Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools.

Catherine Keener Elizabeth Keener

Her sister, Elizabeth Keener, is also an actress and a real estate agent working for Sotheby’s in Los Angeles.

Catherine Keener And Dermot Mulroney | Dermot Mulroney Catherine Keener | Catherine Keener Husband

She married actor Dermot Mulroney in 1990. Dermot filed for divorce in June 2007, citing irreconcilable differences and their divorce was finalized on December 19, 2007.

Actress Catherine Keener

Ann had a supporting role as Lt. Cricket Sideris in the television series Ohara about an Asian-American detective. The series then ran from January 1987 to May 1988.

Keener’s first film appearance was one line in About Last Night… (1986). Although she struggled professionally over the following few years, one low-quality project had an unexpected dividend: she met her ex-husband actor Dermot Mulroney in 1987 while working on Survival Quest (1989), after Dermot became stuck while attempting to scale a cliff.

Catherine Keener Seinfeld

Keener also guest-starred as an artist on an episode of Seinfeld called “The Letter”. She played as Jerry’s girlfriend, an artist who painted a famous portrait of Kramer. She then earned her first starring role in Johnny Suede with the then unknown Brad Pitt. Ann’s performance gained critical acclaim and earned her first Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. She then went on to work with director Tom Dicillo, again, in Living in Oblivion (1995). Two years later, Keener was once again nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in Walking and Talking, an independent cult-comedy film directed by Nicole Holofcener.

She earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Being John Malkovich, directed by Spike Jonze in 2000. Keener worked with director Nicole Holofcener in Lovely and Amazing garnering her a third Independent Spirit Award nomination in 2001. Ann then co-starred with Edward Norton in the off-Broadway revival of Burn This and the film Death to Smoochy in 2002. She then took part in the film Full Frontal, and Simone alongside Al Pacino.

Catherine Keener 40 Year Old Virgin

Keener starred in the political thriller The Interpreter, The Ballad of Jack and Rose with Daniel Day-Lewis, and played the love interest of Steve Carell in Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005. Her performance as writer Harper Lee in Capote (also 2005) earned her several awards and nominations also including her second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Ann starred in the film Friends with Money, directed by Nicole Holofcener in 2006.

She played Jan Burres in Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed film Into the Wild, based on Jon Krakauer’s best-selling book of the same name in 2007. Keener’s film An American Crime, the true story of Gertrude Baniszewski, a middle-aged mother who tortured and killed Sylvia Likens in her Indiana home, was aired on Showtime in 2008. She played Baniszewski and her portrayal earned her an Emmy nomination in the Best Actress in a TV Mini-Series or Movie category. She portrayed Philip Seymour Hoffman’s wife Adele in Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York in 2008. Ann collaborated with Hoffman as husband and wife again in the 2012 film A Late Quartet. She played the title character’s mother in the 2010 film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief which is based on the series of books by Rick Riordan.

She starred in the six-episode HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, based on the 1999 nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin. The miniseries aired in August 2015. He starred in the independent film Unless in 2016.

He starred as Missy Armitage in the racially themed horror film Get Out in 2017. It was a critical and commercial success.

Catherine Keener Net Worth

The 40 Year Old Virgin star has an estimated net worth of $8 million.

Catherine Keener Movies | Catherine Keener Films

Catherine Keener Hot | Catherine Keener Feet | Catherine Keener Bikini

Catherine Keener Video

Catherine Keener Interview

Forever’s Catherine Keener on Her Love of Maya Rudolph

Published: SEPT. 20, 2018

Source: 

When I started watching Forever, I didn’t even know you were in it because there was so much secrecy around it. I just knew that Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen were in it. Then when you showed up I was like, Oh, of course Catherine Keener is in this show.
Catherine Keener: Oh, you didn’t know at all?

No, I didn’t.
Catherine Keener: Oh, that’s so cool! I love that. They’ve been trying to keep the surprise going.

After watching this and your other work, if I ever end up in purgatory or some weird alternate universe and you are not there, I am going to be really pissed.
Catherine Keener: Well, purgatory is the place where I will be. [Laughs.] You know, when I was in third grade I actually wrote a little short story about a town called Purgatory.

You did?
Catherine Keener: Yeah, I went to a Catholic school. I think it was one-page long and I called it a short story. But it was about a town called Purgatory. It was kind of a Western.

Do you still have it?
Catherine Keener: No, I just remember because when I realized what purgatory was, I also thought — and I think this is the thing that threatens most Catholics — that would be your ultimate destination. It’s neither [heaven nor hell]. It’s straight up the middle.

It seems like you are drawn to stories with an unreal quality. Since you wrote a story like that in third grade, has something about that kind of storytelling always appealed to you?
Catherine Keener: Huh! That’s something to think about. I grew up in a city called Hialeah in Florida. It’s in Miami and it is primarily a Cuban community. It’s like where Little Havana is. Where I grew up, it was across from Main Street. There were arms stores and a bowling alley and a K-Mart. I had weird chores. I would pick up the trash that would blow in from the wind in the front yard.

I had a lot of time and with such a Catholic upbringing, I just imagined a lot of things. I didn’t have a lot of input, or I had a lot of one kind — which didn’t suit me — because I was female. I didn’t know what feminism was or anything, but I knew that I couldn’t do things that the boys could do. So consequently, what was left in my own experience — where I lived, how I lived, the money we had, and all that — there were not a whole lot of choices. My immediate family is nuts and beautiful, but on the outside, what I was given, I felt, Why doesn’t this work for me too?

Do you remember the World Book Encyclopedias?

Yeah. 
Catherine Keener: We didn’t have a full set of encyclopedias, we would get them every month. They had the two volumes of dictionaries and in the back, they would have these vocabulary tests. I couldn’t wait for them to come. I learned everything from the World Book Encyclopedia. For real!

That was our internet.
Catherine Keener: That was our internet, yeah! That’s what I can do, is search — everything else I don’t know how to do, which is kind of a metaphor.

To answer your question, I think I always felt like the other because there wasn’t a place for me in the group I was put in or elected to be in. I just felt, like, other in it. Which is interesting, because you are right, that is sort of where I gravitate towards.

I also read you wanted to do Forever because of your friendship with Maya Rudolph. Is that true?
Catherine Keener: Oh hell yeah. It is all about Maya, my God. And Fred, I’m crazy about him. I don’t know him very well, but he is just wonderful. They are just so sweet-natured. Everybody is so — I don’t know, it’s a very gentle vibe with [co-creators] Matt [Hubbard] and Alan [Yang] and the other writers. Even though they are sharp and completely irreverent, they come from a really good heart collectively.

Maya and I have been friends for a really long time. We actually did this movie together — it was called Can a Song Save Your Life? and the title was changed to Begin Again. Sweet Maya Rudolph. Yeah, I would do anything for Maya. Literally anything. With her, for her, whatever. I was so happy when I found out [the role] was for her best friend, it was just too exciting.

We learn a little bit about Kase in Forever — what her job was, how she died. Did you try to create even more of a backstory for her, or does that not necessarily help you as an actor?
Catherine Keener: Well, it depends because every part is so unique and hopefully radically different. Scenes with [Forever], I worked on with Maya. I’ve been friends with her for so long that I counted on the fact that it was going to be with her. And the guys, Alan and Matt, are just amazing with that stuff. If I am in a hole, they will help me out. So for this, no, I did not create a big backstory.

[Kase] didn’t fit in the living world, and went into the other one, where I guess you’re alive — I don’t know if you would use that word, but you have a presence there. It’s your opportunity to correct, you know? We all have the “make the correction” of opportunities in life, but sometime don’t opt for it.

To me, this show is really about how hard it is for people to break their day-to-day habits.
Catherine Keener: Yeah, we have this template that is totally wired before you even know what it is. Kase recognized it. June, I think, didn’t really recognize it.

Maybe I’m blowing smoke, and you can tell me if I am, but there is so much talk right now about change: trying to change our politics and trying to change the way things are being done in Hollywood. It feels like Forever is attacking the idea of how hard it to change things, from a different angle, in a way that still feels relevant.
Catherine Keener: Pretty relevant in terms of how to try not to be nihilistic, you know? That’s a kind of resistance. Even though [Kase] is a lot of talk, she doesn’t really know how to break that. And then, she sees June and it is just utter love and and it’s unavoidable. Forget rationalizing everything. Forget hammering it to death. Sometimes you just say love.

That’s another question I have: Fred’s character, Oscar, suggests that there is a romantic relationship between Kase and June. Do you think that Kase’s feelings towards June are romantic?
Catherine Keener: I don’t think they are classifiable. I don’t think she identifies yet. I think she is craving somebody like that in her life. If it’s “the one,” I think yeah, June is the one for Kase. Even your soul mate, something like that. But not with the sexual relationship. I did not really see that much there.

When they go to Oceanside, it seems like Kase really wants to stay. Why do you think that is? 
Catherine Keener: Because Kase hasn’t worked out her shit yet. She is hoping that this is it because this is the dream, and I don’t think she’s had dreams for a very long time. But sometimes you see that through and think, Oh man, that was a mistake. But yeah, Oceanside is too weird for her. For me, it is a little more … not immature. It feels like a younger person than Kase, emotionally, would be into that. Because it exposes you to the alternate. She was so square in her previous life that it’s sort of, What is this world? People are like this? I have never seen anything like this. She is looking for a way out, but there is no way out.

They are very different shows obviously, but I was wondering whether you think Deidre from Kidding and Kase from Forever would find some common ground.
Catherine Keener: After a hugely rocky start, I think they would go at each other and then maybe they’d begrudgingly respect each other. I don’t know if they are ever going to be friends.

Catherine Keener Contacts

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Tiktok
• Website