Lois Smith Joins Cast of Colin West's 'Outside of Cleveland'

Lois Smith has joined the cast of Outside of Cleveland, the upcoming feature from director Colin West, Variety reported on 13 November 2026.

Smith will play Marjorie, the grandmother of a character named Max. The film also stars Alex Wolff, Brooklynn Prince, Jim Gaffigan, Sarah Wayne Callies and Michael Ian Black, so the cast spans a mix of familiar names from film and television.

The movie is produced by three companies: Brain Scratch Productions, 1515 Films and Sub_Sequential Pictures. Producers are the people who put a project together, hire the crew and keep the money and schedule on track, so a film with several producing companies often has several partners sharing that work.

Before reaching screens, Outside of Cleveland was picked for the U.S. in Progress co-production forum at Poland's Tauron American Film Festival. A co-production forum is a meeting where filmmakers pitch unfinished projects to possible partners, such as foreign producers or funders, who might help pay for or finish a film. Being chosen gives a project a chance to meet those partners, although it does not guarantee that any deal follows.

West has made films before. His earlier feature Linoleum premiered at SXSW, the Austin, Texas festival that often introduces new films and filmmakers to the wider industry. Premiering there is a common first step for a small independent film looking for distributors, which are the companies that decide how and where a movie is shown.

For readers following the film, the next updates will come from the people making it. Casting announcements like this one usually arrive well before a film is finished, so the path from a list of names to a finished movie in cinemas or on a streaming service can take a long time. Each step, from the cast to the festival pitch to the sale, is a decision made by someone in the industry.

Nothing in the announcement changes the release calendar, and no release date has been set.