To start with, let me say I have nothing against Ms. Day and wish her a long life, surrounded by friends, family and loved ones and a prosperous career. I’m not trying to make some “OMG [Celebrity] sucks why do they exist??” post.
That said, someone elsewhere linked to some Youtube video of a series based off the Dragon Age computer games. They feature Felicia Day as an elf. They are… bad. Laughably bad. At least the first one is, I didn’t waste my time with the others after seeing how dire the first video was. Poor line delivery, poor body movement and silly facial expressions. That’s not counting the elements outside her control (yay obviously foam weapons!)
I watched The Guild and got about halfway through the second season before the novelty wore off and I lost interest. She was okay in a role where you could get away with acting unpolished and shaky at acting. I remember her being in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog but, to be fair to her, everyone was overshadowed by NPH in that so what are you going to do?
But I see from IMDB that she has a bunch of other acting credits to her name as side/temporary characters in various TV series and even a few films. I’ve never thought of her as anyone besides “Girl famous for being ‘accessibly cute’ to game nerds” but I’ve never seen any of these shows either so I’m curious… can the girl act? Well? She’s getting hired for some reason but is it primarily due to her acting chops or due to her fan following?
Felicia Day is part of the Joss Whedon troupe, which means she’s always good for a bit part in anything he’s producing (see Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse, Buffy).
But she is a halfway decent actress (at least I think so). It’s just this Dragon Age webseries is so low-budget (and so obviously commissioned to cash in on the coattails of Mortal Kombat: Legacy) that no amount of effort on Ms. Day’s part (she’s the writer as well as the star) can get the stink off.
That said, I’m sure her Queen of the Nerds persona has helped her acting career immensely.
I’m a big fan of hers. I’ve enjoyed nearly everything she’s been in that I’ve seen, with Red being a notable exception. I freely admit she’s a middle-of-the-road actress with what seems to be a limited range. I think she has a lot more more skill at writing than she does at acting.
But she is a great person, someone I’d love to hang out with, and that comes across in the characters she plays. You can write that off as Queen of the Nerds if you want, lord knows I’m a giant nerd. But it doesn’t change the fact that she entertains the hell out of me, and that’s what she’s paid to do.
Hannigan’s a better actress and will have a longer career (unless she decides to check out early, as sometimes happens) but Day is a good deal hotter than she is.
It would be great if we were the last two men on earth. We would have no issues dividing up the women. It seems every time there is a “who is prettier?” option, we are on opposite sides.
I respectfully disagree with the “smoking hot” (I think she’s cute but hardly hot and most images on Google make me feel confident in that assessment) but “hot and nerd” is what I assumed her qualifications were. After witnessing the DA videos, I was wondering if she had any qualifications beyond that.
My rough chain of thought was:
(1) See The Guild. Think “Yeah, she’s okay in this and it was amusing enough until I got bored.”
(2) See Dr. Horrible. Think “Haha… NPH. Oh, it’s that girl from The Guild.”
(3) Be vaguely aware of her existence in a “Yeah, she’s that chick the gaming nerds are into” sort of way.
(4) See the DA video. Think “Hey, it’s that girl again from The Gui—WTF is this shit??”
(5) Notice she has a more extensive IMDB with “real” acting jobs and wonder how what I saw in the DA video reconciles with that.
I suppose I’ll jump in with another opinion contrary to that of the majority here: I don’t find Felicia Day attractive at all, sufficiently so that when I first noticed others calling her astoundingly hot I assumed they were joking. I mean, she’s … perfectly average, plain even. Looking more closely (as I suppose one naturally does with a celebrity) I notice her pallor; her pronounced overbite makes the front of her face look rather pointy. She hardly has any figure to speak of — heck — she looks downright frail to me.
If (I dunno) a friend had brought her over for dinner my reaction would be “Oh, she’s cute! Good going, So-and-so”, but a too-hot-for-words semi-famous actress? Don’t get it. Maybe if I were into the video game fandom thing.
(Full disclosure: I’ve never thought Alyson Hannigan or Kari Byron were very attractive, either. If you’d like to take my opinion as aberrant and contrary to the order of nature, I’ll understand.)
Alyson Hannigan isn’t cute. She’s hot. That is to say, she is evocative of sexual desire because of her personality and carriage, in a way that does not necessarily come across in still photos.
Hannigan I could see as “hot”. Kari Byron I viewed in the same way as Felicia Day: a lady in a role that appeals to a geeky fan base and cute enough to make people interested without being so hot as to seem unattainable. Ms. Byron isn’t ugly or anything but the fan worship goes right past me.
I loved her in Doctor Horrible, but then, I loved nearly everything about Doctor Horrible.
I’ve seen some of The Guild and found it entertaining, but never made a point out of looking for more - most of the clips I’ve seen were aired at a Doctor Horrible singalong in Toronto.
I met Felicia at DragonCon and attended her Q&A at Fan Expo 2010 - I started off wishing that there wasn’t so much Guild talk at the Q&A and wanting to hear more about her experiences with Doctor Horrible, Dollhouse, and Buffy. But she was so passionate whenever she talked about making The Guild that I soon found it very charming - you could tell that the show was a labor of love for her, and I guess that’s cool.
Fans generally become fond of actors who are fond of their fans, and that tends to become part of their reputation which just fuels the love. Felicia seems very accessible and friendly toward the common nerd, and I respect her for that.
But she doesn’t interest me at all. She’s cute, but I don’t find her attractive, and I’m not fond of her voice. I thought she was the weakest part of Dr. Horrible.
I loved her on Buffy season 7. She was one of the few SITs (slayers in training) that was able to convey personality. She was good in Dr. Horrible. The guild was just a boring webseries.
I liked her as Veronica in Fallout: New Vegas (kind of hope she shows up in the Nuka-Break webseries).
She’s cute the same way Alyson Hanigan is cute.
Anyone can be made to look “HOT” for a Maxim shoot but their day-to-day is “cute.”
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think she’s a particularly great actress, nor is she “super-hot” in the conventional model sense. But that’s kind of the point - she’s still very cute in a quirky, geeky way. Her personality is 90% of the reason I have a huge nerdcrush on her. And yes, I’ve met her in real life (twice) - she was extremely sweet both times.
