Fledgling Director Gillian Greene’s ‘Murder of a Cat’ Is One to Watch at Tribeca
Gillian Greene’s TV star father had an adage about career arcs that was applicable to any actor:
“Who’s Lorne Greene?”
“Get me Lorne Greene!”
“Get me the next Lorne Greene!”
“Who’s the next Lorne Greene?”
At the moment, the next Gillian Greene is Gillian Greene, whose first feature, “Murder of a Cat” premieres next week at the Tribeca Film Festival. The off-beat comedy stars Fran Kranz (Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Cabin in the Woods”) as a manchild with a proto-Bieber haircut, various delusions, and who lives at home with his mother (Blythe Danner). Just coincidentally, all of Greene’s children, ages 7 to 20, live with their mother.
“Yeah, people are surprised I have so many kids, but I started kind of young,” said the fledgling director, whose father was a star of the longtime NBC western “Bonanza” and, later, the original “Battlestar Galactica” TV series. She met her husband, director Sam Raimi, when she was 20 and they had their first when she was 25. “Which isn’t that young, but I never even liked kids. I never babysat, I was an only child, I never got all excited about babies. But when I had my first child I just fell in love.”
