The premise of the thread is flawed - there’s no prejudice, just subjective preferences mixed with contemporary tastes.
I actually believe (just a guess) that - while you indeed have a lot of people doing extreme things to try to break into, or stay on the fringes of, show business - the typical working actor/actress has a personal trainer, or at the least maintains a workout regimen. And, in addition, I bet that they have some interest/focus on eating well.
At the least, I think it’s at a greater proportion than typical America.
(By “Hollywood”, I’m talking about television and movies; I can’t account for the people living in the LA area who are trying to get into the industry)
I don’t disagree with this. I’m just suggesting that it accounts for a high percentage of fitness/wellness enthusiasts among the acting population.
I don’t disagree with this, either. But my description wasn’t of “thin” people - it was of people who exercise and eat well, as opposed to people who have more of a struggle with daily living. I’m going to venture that even “heavy” working actors do more personal self care than a middle American who puts in 50 hours a week at work before having to deal with the kids.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I very much doubt that “having a personal trainer” means the opposite of going on unnaturally restricted diets “to maintain body weights that are unhealthy to maintain.” Ideally it would; but I suspect that’s exactly what a lot of personal trainers are encouraging.
And a lot of “fitness/wellness enthusiasts” have fallen into the “fit = thin” delusion.
I’m pretty sure she’s wearing makeup in the first picture. It’s just designed to not be obvious.
Spice Weasel - it sounds like I want to read your stuff. Where do I look?
Regardless, it doesn’t change my thesis : people who act are more body conscious/devote more time to maintaining/improving their looks than typical Americans. Whether it’s ultimately less healthy isn’t the point - it’s whether it makes them look more photogenic when filmed.
What I’m suggesting is that, if you walked through a Target or a grocery store, I bet that you’d find a lot more people who do not devote time to their “health/lifestyle routine” than amongst actors. In typical America, you’d have people who are too tired/sick/struggling/busy to exercise, or do yoga, or whatever the latest trend is to get you fit. They don’t do the massages and facials and cleanse sessions in the same proportion, either.
In the real world, there are people who go to their job, and go shopping, and run appointments, who don’t spend an iota of time worrying about such things. I’m saying that, among those on film, worrying about such things is the norm.
That’s the skew we are seeing, I believe. There’s a level of body consciousness and devotion of resources to the body’s condition amongst actors that is disproportionate to the general population.
Oh, I’m not finished yet. I’m working on a trilogy, so… it’ll be a while (especially because I’m taking a hiatus. I just want some period of time to not have the pressure of being a Really Serious Writer.) I am pleased, however, to hear I might have an audience!
I see. I think that’s a fair claim, but I’m not sure how it ties into the idea of looks prejudice. Do you feel it’s not a problem for people who preen over their looks to get more jobs in performing than those who don’t?
I’m honestly not sure what I think. I believe that looks-obsessed culture is fundamentally unhealthy, but I’m not sure if that’s relevant to the discussion.
Ah, I think I see what you’re saying.
How much of that is chicken-and-the-egg, though. Don’t actors do that because they think that otherwise they won’t get roles?
It seems to me that if casting directors looked, when casting people for “typical-America” sorts of roles, for people who looked like typical Americans: then there’d be more actors who didn’t spend huge amounts of time and money trying to look otherwise.
(And no, that wouldn’t cut them out of all possible lead roles. Would probably leave them a lot of the most potentially interesting ones.)
Not only that, but I’ve read countless interviews with actors (predominately women) who were told to lose weight or they wouldn’t be cast for parts. And frequently actors will say that they weren’t told to lose weight until much later.
It seems incongruent for a person to be an actor and not care how they are perceived. Isn’t one of the first things an aspiring actor does is get a head shot?
I’m guessing that people who get into acting do so with aspirations of getting “good” and “substantial” roles, and so they try to maximize their viability. And, if you’re an actor, that means caring how you look as much as how you emote. At least, I’d presume so - “you” is what you have to offer.
Also, if you are an actor, then you aren’t the people you portray, and so you aren’t living those lives. Meaning, no matter how authentic you’re costuming, or your persona, you just won’t have the earned grit of realism that comes from actual authenticity. So it might not be worth it to aspire to a “non actor” look (I.e. weathered skin, or deep wrinkles), if that look is derived from living a life away from the acting life.
I thought they wanted to be perceived as being able to act.
There are all sorts of roles for actors, or should be. Why should they only be interested in acting in the ones requiring unusually good looks, if it isn’t that the directors are demanding that people in nearly all the roles have unusually good looks, whether or not the role actually makes sense that way?
I’m not suggesting that all actors aspire to have deep wrinkles (which almost no young to middle-aged people actually have) or “weathered skin” (which requires taking actual damage), any more than I’m suggesting they should aspire to have broken and discolored teeth. I’m suggesting that the reason that they go to great lengths to weigh less than they naturally would and be shaped differently than they’re naturally shaped has to do primarily with their expecting that casting directors will cast nearly all roles with actors who look that way, whether or not there’s any reason that the person being portrayed would look that way, and often even if there’s good reason to think that the person being portrayed would not look that way.
And I’m suggesting that this is a problem: both for the actors who starve and plastic-surgery themselves into such shape, and for the would-be actors of genuine talent who are unable or unwilling to do that and so who don’t get casted; and also a problem for the audiences, both because if nearly everyone is portrayed as looking in a fashion that for most people either isn’t possible at all or requires a starvation diet and/or plastic surgery this encourages eating disorders and unhappiness with themselves, and also because audiences miss out on the actors of great talent who aren’t casted because of their appearance.
As I noted above, if they need wrinkles they can give you wrinkles. You don’t need to add them for real.
There is nothing less real than a TV or movie set. If authenticity worked for roles, they’d hire authentic people - they might be cheaper. To modify a famous quote slightly, acting is all about being authentic, and if you can fake that you’ve got it made.
As a manager who had gone through equality of opportunity training, I was amazed at the form one fills out when joining SAG, which asks all sorts of questions that you’d never ask when interviewing someone for a job. But all the questions are work related when you are an actor, so it’s all legit.
IIRC, your daughter was quite young when she acted. Was it the same question sheet they gave to adults? I assume about nudity and sex scenes. Can you name a few that may have surprised you at first glance?
Besides differences in types that people find attractive, there is also seemingly the belief that actresses are either skinny (or have sharp knees) or they are fat. There seems to be no middle ground to a lot of the audience. There is no actress that many people will think is too skinny or too fat no matter how healthy she is. It’s either “give that woman a sandwich” or " no seconds for her."
Opera is the notable exception. Size or appearance doesn’t particularly matter. Maybe because the audience is *50ft or more away.
*Assuming a orchestra pit in front of the stage
No, in New York at least kids were treated just like adults, except that the union rules required no overtime and there was a schooling requirement. The overtime rule was a joke - the company paid a small penalty if it was violated.
No mention of nudity or sex that I remember - the things that surprised me concerned measurements and appearance.
I’ve reviewed hundreds of resumes in my time, and I don’t remember one with a picture of the candidate, for obvious reasons. In acting what serves as a resume is a head shot with a one page list of significant roles and contact information on the back. I would guess that when an agent submits someone to a casting director 90% of the time they never even look at the back.
Actors should have versatile appearance: If the role calls for beautiful, they should be able to make themselves beautiful, and if the role calls for ugly, they should be able to make themselves ugly. But it’s a lot easier to make a beautiful person ugly than it is to make an ugly person beautiful, so beautiful people are more versatile.
Of course, the real way it usually works out is that if the role calls for ugly, they make the actor beautiful, and then just say that they’re ugly.
In the spirit of that old joke about playing poker with strangers:
Look around at the rest of the cast. If everyone else is a 10, you’re the ugly duckling 9.
But most people aren’t ugly. There’s a huge range, covering most of humanity, between “extraordinarily beautiful” and “ugly”. Most people look just fine.
And, in any kind of normal depiction of humanity, that’s also where most of the roles ought to be.