He was typecast, but certainly not as the “fat ugly friend.”
It’s a career choice. If the look is very particular they’ll be with a specialised agency. You get exceptionally thin people who are basically the people you see in concentration camps on film, stuff like that.
If you want to be an actor you work in theatre, you take on challenging and interesting roles etc, sometimes you might work in tv or film. If you want to be a celebrity but you don’t look like a barbie doll you can try to aim for the sidekick parts, or the highly specialised weirdo parts. And then there is wanting to be an actor, but having to pay rent.
A friend of mine is the obese bald guy. You’ve seen him in loads of stuff. He makes money that way, but he’s actually a very talented actor and comedian.
Of course, Patrick Stewart’s pre-Star Trek career was 12 years longer than Shatner’s. I suspect the younger you are when you get typecast, the more it rankles.
Yes, but if he really did kill himself because of the unavailability of roles for Superman than he probably would have preferred being the ‘fat ugly friend’. As you can see from reading the thread, the actor’s feelings reflect the impact of typecasting on their career. The ‘fat ugly friend’ type might have no career at all without typecasting, others may find themselves unable to work because of the limited roles for their type.
Ah, sorry. That’s how I read that. My bad.
vislor
I know for some, it’s easier to get cast if you are ‘interesting’ instead of ‘beautiful’ - let’s face it, beautiful is easier to come by in places like Hollywood, and eventually it will fade…interesting looking lasts.
I remember Robert Webber, who is best remembered as the gay lyricist in “10” and Maddie’s father in “Moonlighting” said early in his career he met Warner Brothers character actor Frank McHugh. Webber remarked he wanted to be a big star, McHugh said you should want to be a character actor…that way you will always have a job
On the other hand, I heard an interview with Maz Jobrani last night, who is crowdsourcing the funding to make his own movie because he was tired of being cast as a terrorist or a taxi driver or a terrorist taxi driver.
He should start by losing his facial hair. You just *know *that he somebody’s evil twin.
I agree. Not only do they show more ugly people, they show more *normal *looking people. In British TV, actors playing country doctors look like, well, country doctors. In American TV, actors playing crime scene investigators look like supermodels.