Cheryl Hines improvises for a living on Curb Your Enthusiasm, so doing a movie was nothing to her. The Grand is an improvised comedy about a poker tournament, and Hines plays a suburban mom out to win $10 million.
Hines Improvs Up a Grand
"I read the outline so I knew it was an improvised comedy about poker, and I had to do it," she said. "I literally begged [director] Zak [Penn] to let me be a part of it, and he did."
Even the cards were improvised, as the actors played a real poker game at the final table. Hines tried to figure out their tells. "Those guys are good but Chris Parnell hadn’t played really before this movie. I couldn’t tell you any of their tells. Dennis Farina liked to insult people. I don’t know whether he had a good hand or not."
The game was addictive as actors continued to play even after cameras wrapped. "Because we shot in Vegas, we were staying at the Golden Nugget, we’d go and play poker until two a.m. We’d play tournaments with Zak and Jason [Alexander] and Richard Kind is a very good poker player. Anybody that was around to play, we’d stay up until six a.m."
Hines was responsible for all her lines, but some of the character's backstory was provided. "We had kids, five or six, and she has a brother that’s a poker pro, so their relationship was really spelled out in the outline. Other than that, I got to do my own thing."
The hairdo, however was all her. "That was my rock n roll, dirty girl ‘do. Did you like it? There was a lot of wax in that hairdo. I washed up before I went home."
The Grand is out in theaters now.
For the trailers, stills, review and more movie info, go to the The Grand Movie Page.
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