I always figured her nomination for Year of Living Dangerously was wrong. She was nominated for Best Actress. She should have been nominated for Best Actor.
After all, there wasn’t a single moment in that movie when you were not convinced her character was male. In fact there wasn’t a moment when you were not convinced the character’s actor was male. Brilliant work.
I’ve also loved her later work, from Silverado to being the only thing worth watching on NCIS Los Angeles.
A similar example from Poland, where the actress Krystyna Feldman won awards and was most appreciated for her role as the painter Nikifor Krynicki.
The actress in costume. http://img.interia.pl/rozrywka/nimg/Krystyna_Feldman_jako_898152.jpg
The painter. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Nikifor_Krynicki_01.jpg/240px-Nikifor_Krynicki_01.jpg
The actress sans costume. http://i.wp.pl/a/f/film/033/63/95/0079563.jpg
Of course age helped, as wrinkles can really equalize people, but it was still a very impressive performance.
She was also the go-to actress for roles of maids, cleaners, colourful background characters, ‘eccentric’ old ladies and similar.
Here is a picture of the young actress, fourth one down to the right. http://www.dubbing.fora.pl/1960-69,19/rok-1960,75.html
I’m not sure this list really proves your point. I’ve never heard of a lot of these women, and several of the ones I have heard of are B-list at best.
Oh, come on. No one’s mentioned that creepy bald dude that doesn’t even look human in Men in Black? Carel Struycken…Carel Struycken - IMDb
Along the same lines as the last poster–I can’t believe no one has mentioned Richard Kiel. I will always remember him from the James Bond Film.
and
How about Michael Berryman, otherwise known as that guy.
Allyce was cute-plain, like someone in the next cube with kitty pictures all over her monitor, or the gal you get set up on a blind date with and have some laughs and maybe a peck or two.
Vince was vaguely nightmarish, like the guy who temps in the shipping department and can’t stop eating the rubber cement, or perhaps Steven Wright’s older brother, the one who was “not funny” crazy.
Which is besides the point. They’re attractive and considered so, that’s the point.
Not ugly, but Sissy Spacek is frequently cast for plain.as a character of plain or homely looks.
Peter Lorre unconventional look quickly got him typecast as a murderer, fiend, or psychopath.
The point I was responding to was a claim that Hollywood “exploits the hotness” of short brunettes with small breasts. If many of the actresses on the list are obscure (Shannon Woodward isn’t exactly a household name) then that indicates that Hollywood has not been making much use of them. Natalie Portman is a pretty big star and I’ve definitely heard her described as “hot” by a number of men, but Shannon Woodward, Nora Zehetner, and Shiri Appleby? Come on. Regardless of how attractive these women might be, they can’t be widely considered as such unless people actually know who they are.
I recently started getting in to the British sketch show French & Saunders, and on one episode they had Julie T. Wallace as a guest (un-hyperlinked link because there is an outline of a female figure on the page: http://www.mademan.com/chickipedia/julie-t.-wallace/) I guess she’s considered “the big ugly broad” in British film (which was part of the “plot” of the F&S episode).
Argent Towers’ picture of young Christopher Walken looks suspiciously like that kid from The Riches (Noel Fisher).
She looks like she’s fun. There’s a lot to be said for fun.
Vince looked more like entertaining. Fun I’ll sleep with. Entertaining I’ll get drunk.
They were cast in “cute chick” roles. It doesn’t matter how high profile they were.
Nora Zehetner played the seductress in Brick, which was lauded by dopers. (The movie, not the actress.) She also played Eden in the first (two?) season(s) of Heroes, which was quite popular among dopers back then.
Shannon Woodward played the hot daughter on The Riches. Not huge among dopers, but there were praises for her beauty in the episode threads.
Shiri Appleby played the lead role on the series Roswell on the WB, costarring a young Katherine Heigl. She was more recently cast as “Jailbait - Charlie’s Angels” in Charlie Wilson’s War. As I recall, that means she was cast as one of the gaggle of hot chicks who worked in his office.
But really, it feels like you’re arguing simply for the sake of arguing. I know that’s a big doper pasttime, but I really don’t see the point to it. So I concede this point. Yes, Hollywood can’t possibly view a short, pale, small-chested brunette as attractive. Can’t happen, won’t happen; just not possible. Stupid Hollywood force-feeding their own idea of beauty to the unwashed masses. Every woman Hollywood presents as a “hot chick” looks exactly the same.
Come on, she sure is not the stereotype hollywood bimbo, but she’s an attractive woman.
NVM.
I don’t see the resemblance at all. The young Walken’s facial symmetry - the so-called golden ratio - is nearly flawless. The other guy’s features are totally asymmetrical (and not very handsome, IMO.) He has a fatter lip, a weaker chin and a higher forehead.
Another shot of the young Walken and a profile which displays the exceptional facial structure he had in his youth.
Nice profile. Still damned scary looking, though, IMHO.
The OP seemed not so much to be asking for a list of unattractive actors as how such people are cast, and how they feel about it:
[Emphasis mine.]
ISTR asking my father a similar question about the actress he cast as Buttercup in a community theater production of The Pirates of Penzance, way back in the 1960s. (For those who may not be up on Gilbert and Sullivan, she’s supposed to be an older, overweight, and relatively unattractive woman.) Dad said of the actress, “She knows who she is and what she can do.”
So although Hollywood is known for being home to vain and self-deluded people, presumably there are plenty of actors and actresses in the ordinary-to-ugly range who realize they won’t be cast as romantic leads but are willing to ply their trade anyway. They know who they are and what they can do.
And probably get a whole lot more work than they would if they were actually attractive but not “movie star” attractive. There is ALWAYS work for character actors, even when a lot of would-be leading men and ladies who aren’t quite there as far as charisma and “star quality” are drawing unemployment.
