Grier adds ‘Them’ to 1970s ‘Foxy Brown’
Usually, the only intruders Pam Grier has to worry about are the horses who saunter into her Colorado ranch house uninvited.
“I’ve got to get them out before they poop,” says the longtime actress and 1970s film icon. “They feel comfortable walking in and going to sleep: ‘Hey mom, how you doing?’ ”
In her new horror series, Grier, 74, faces something far more supernatural: “Them: The Scare” (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), centers on Dawn (Deborah Ayorinde), an LAPD homicide detective in the 1991 aftermath of the Rodney King beating, pursuing a serial killer who leaves gruesome crime scenes.
Grier plays Dawn’s mom Athena, who takes care of her daughter and grandson (Joshua J. Williams), harbors a dark secret and has terrifying visions – including a monstrous washing machine – around the house that may or may not be real.
“This is not the sex symbol” of old, says Grier, who gained fame in the blaxploitation era and became a popculture powerhouse with films like 1974’s “Foxy Brown.” Now, “I know what it’s like to take care of people who can no longer take care of themselves anymore and are ashamed, and give up that strength to vulnerability.”
‘Them: The Scare’ adds to Grier’s horror resume
Grier has a history of scary projects, dating back to 1973’s “Scream Blacula Scream,” which includes the 2001 Snoop Dogg movie “Bones” and last year’s “Pet Sematary: Bloodlines.”
“Not everyone can handle horror; they don’t like to be scared,” she says. “I don’t like going into a dark room I’ve never been into.” (What scares Grier most? Using ancestry sites like 23andMe: “Oh, I have 99 cousins? Great.”)
For the second season of his anthology series, “Them” creator Little Marvin sought out Grier to play Athena. “When I read the script first time, I’m scared. My hands are sweating. Woo. Now I know why folks drink,” she recalls. “He felt I wasn’t numb from all of the events in my life that could make people run into a padded room, never come out and be weighted by medication.” But Grier pulled it off by bringing her real self to the role, so much so that it involved crying, anxiety and nosebleeds. “I’m not layers of callouses on my emotions. I’m raw. I’m still there. It made me feel, yay, I haven’t given up.”
Iconic 1970s actress calls Colorado, not Hollywood, home
In 1991 when “The Scare” is set, Grier wasn’t living in “lavish” LA. Instead, she called Colorado home, taking care of her family, and she still loves that lifestyle. “I have trucks, I have dirt, I could name 10 tractor companies,” she says. “I don’t roll out of bed and get to go to work. I come from a long distance of really enjoying what I’m doing. I step off the plane, I walk into the office in character.”
But the LAPD of the past was “ill-informed and very dangerous,” she says. In the late ‘90s, Grier was starring in the Showtime comedy “Linc’s” and stayed in LA for nine months while filming on the Paramount lot. She left for work one morning at 4 a.m. and was stopped by an officer on Melrose Avenue, told to get out of her car and interrogated about what she was doing at that time of day. “They didn’t believe me. And if I made a false move, I probably would not be here,” Grier recalls. “I’m never late for work, but I wanted to survive. That scared me. And if it’s happening to me, a woman with rollers in her hair going to work at 4:00 a.m., then a whole lot of folks are going through something.”
Grier celebrates 50 years of ‘Foxy Brown’
Grier recently optioned her 2010 memoir “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts,” and her life story is being developed as a TV series with Village Roadshow Pictures. One of the aspects it will touch on is the origins of “Foxy Brown,” which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 5.
Foxy, a woman who poses as a prostitute to infiltrate a criminal syndicate after her undercover agent boyfriend is murdered, has been a touchstone for decades. But in action films like “Foxy” and “Coffy,” a year earlier, she surprised people as an up-and-coming actress who spent her childhood in Colorado and Wyoming hunting, fishing and studying karate and aikido. “It took three to four years to prepare a patriarchal society to see a woman in a man’s position: traditional martial arts, leadership, standing up, talking back,” Grier says.
She also admits that she “got a lot of my Foxyness” from the women around her, especially her aunt. “I was just doing what they were thinking. I didn’t create the wheel.” As a kid, “I was a dork (and) skinny. My kneecaps were bigger than my legs. I wasn’t attractive. I didn’t attract boys or anything.” So in her early 20s, when she was cast in “Foxy,” her first thought was, “I don’t think they’re going to watch. And lo and behold, they did watch for 50 years.”