Transcript
Ugly Actors
December 1, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Farrelly Brothers' comedy Shallow Hal has been a box office success but it's also been boycotted by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. One overweight person who hasn't protested is Ivy Snitzer, Gwyneth Paltrow's 300-pound body double in the film. She says the film has a sweet message and takes the jokes in stride. But where does a casting director turn to find actors who aren't the Apollonian ideal of physical beauty and don't mind being the butt of the joke? A few months ago Garfield went to the West Coast to find out.
BOB GARFIELD:The flock here to Los Angeles to convert their looks into Hollywood careers, because let's face it, not everybody is a natural talent like Keanu Reeves or Heather Graham. Most of the wannabe's are just striking faces on an 8 by 10.
ROBIN HARRINGTON: We get like a big stack of like 25 or so submission in the mail every day. Literally I have every person's hopes and dreams sitting on my desk, and they all think that they're going to be movie stars.
BOB GARFIELD:Robin Harrington is the co-owner of Dragon, The Talent Agency, a bulky elevator ride above Wilshire Boulevard. Dragon is not the ordinary Hollywood magnet for the impossibly gorgeous however. The head shots here are conspicuously thin on square jaws, high cheek bones and perfect pearly smiles. In fact a good part of the clientele is pretty heinous looking, which works out very well for them because at the moment, as measured by the casting breakdowns with physical specifications for roles in TV, film and advertising we are in a raging bull market for the unsightly.
ROBIN HARRINGTON: Braces, freckles, pimples, too skinny, heavy -- it's rare that I see the breakdown that is looking for the gorgeous beauty. It's all about real people right now. Like we are looking for inbred.
BOB GARFIELD: There will always be a demand for gods and goddesses of course, but the trend now is toward geek chic -- and worse.
WO
MAN: The majority of the people that I cast these days are beyond real.
BOB GARFIELD: Casting agent Cathy Carlton sits in her West L.A. office sifting through 8 by 10s.
CATHY CARLTON: Like this guy right here, Chip.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, he's not hideous but you know, Omar Sharif he ain't.
CATHY CARLTON:No. This girl -- I think she's about 6' 2" -sweet as can be -- you know? She works; she works a lot, but-- she's definitely not beautiful. Then we have Bunny Summers who is just a sweetheart and it's all about her weight and her jowls and she just makes the best of it, loves it; you know booked her many times. You know she just enjoys her, her layers there!
BOB GARFIELD:It may seem counter-intuitive in a town where superficiality runs so deep that a young woman would regard her weight and jowls as a meal ticket, but-- there you are. Take Vincent Schiavelli. He is not strictly speaking a handsome guy. His ultra-drooping eyes give him a Bassett Hound look that is so severe he's only been able to get parts in 80 movies - 80 movies. Just to put that in perspective - Brad Pitt has been in 23 movies. Of course none of Brad Pitt's was Rescue from Gilligan's Island.
VINCENT SCHIAVELLI: My face is my fortune, baby, but on the other hand, somehow the particular nature of my looks -- people might tend to think that I am a certain way that I'm not.
BOB GARFIELD:He's not deeply depressed, for example. Or deranged or a ghost -- even though he played one in Ghost. He's a trained actor who likes to take advantage of what he calls his physicality without the parts being about his physicality. When directors call looking for that strange-looking guy with the eyes, he'd prefer to say no -- but--
VINCENT SCHIAVELLI: You have to do them because you have to work, because you have bills to pay and you have expenses and so on and so forth. Then it's like-- ffffff-- [SIGHS] - okay, let's go to work. Yeah.
RICH SILVERSTEIN: I think we like to laugh, and we don't laugh at beautiful people.
BOB GARFIELD: Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, the San Francisco ad agency, has often cast TV spots with the un-beautiful. A recent commercial for E-trade was about a grotesque Gloria Swanson type getting an erotic pedicure from her pool boy. Another for Frito-Lay used a family of overweight trailer trash to demonstrate Frito's new crush-proof packaging.
WO
MAN: [SCREAMING] I can't [...?...]! [LAUGHTER] [...?...] [...?...]!!!
MAN: There's my gal!!!!!
BOB GARFIELD: They say there are no small parts; only small actors. These are extremely large actors cast for their girth, but Silverstein says he had no difficulty getting people to audition.
RICH SILVERSTEIN: Andy Warhol was so right. Everyone can be famous for 15 minutes. And no one says no.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, but you've got to wonder - when the agent calls saying Frito-Lay is looking for obese, obnoxious losers -- are you available -- what goes on in the actor's mind in terms of self-image, in terms of self-esteem, in terms of just plain human vanity. Doesn't that take a toll?
COCO BARAT: And I've played with some very interesting people such as Herve Villachez from Fantasy Island--
BOB GARFIELD: Meet Coco Barat of the Comedy Team Coco & Penny. Once upon a time she was a buxom young character actress and comedienne who got tantalizingly close to success in New York. Now she is in Hollywood, much older, much heavier, garishly clad and coiffed -- all teased hair and leopard skin -- still trying to break through.
COCO BARAT: I've done Law and Order and I played a landlady. [LAUGHS] Very often I play a Gypsy. In Carlito's Way I played a fortune teller. They're not casting me as a--glamorous young girl.
BOB GARFIELD: When Goodby, Silverstein was looking for a grossly sexual Gloria Swanson, Coco jumped at the opportunity.
COCO BARAT: I just love that when I -- wish I could do that when it was wonderful--
BOB GARFIELD: You wish you had the part where the idea was to look repulsive.
COCO BARAT: [LAUGHS]! I guess so. I don't mind being me. I don't mind at all.
BOB GARFIELD:I'm reminded of the words of James Baldwin which I read just now in Bartlett's Quotations. "The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." But maybe the reverse is true as well: the benefit we get from ugliness is a more intimate relationship with art.
December 1, 2001
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Farrelly Brothers' comedy Shallow Hal has been a box office success but it's also been boycotted by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. One overweight person who hasn't protested is Ivy Snitzer, Gwyneth Paltrow's 300-pound body double in the film. She says the film has a sweet message and takes the jokes in stride. But where does a casting director turn to find actors who aren't the Apollonian ideal of physical beauty and don't mind being the butt of the joke? A few months ago Garfield went to the West Coast to find out.
BOB GARFIELD:The flock here to Los Angeles to convert their looks into Hollywood careers, because let's face it, not everybody is a natural talent like Keanu Reeves or Heather Graham. Most of the wannabe's are just striking faces on an 8 by 10.
ROBIN HARRINGTON: We get like a big stack of like 25 or so submission in the mail every day. Literally I have every person's hopes and dreams sitting on my desk, and they all think that they're going to be movie stars.
BOB GARFIELD:Robin Harrington is the co-owner of Dragon, The Talent Agency, a bulky elevator ride above Wilshire Boulevard. Dragon is not the ordinary Hollywood magnet for the impossibly gorgeous however. The head shots here are conspicuously thin on square jaws, high cheek bones and perfect pearly smiles. In fact a good part of the clientele is pretty heinous looking, which works out very well for them because at the moment, as measured by the casting breakdowns with physical specifications for roles in TV, film and advertising we are in a raging bull market for the unsightly.
ROBIN HARRINGTON: Braces, freckles, pimples, too skinny, heavy -- it's rare that I see the breakdown that is looking for the gorgeous beauty. It's all about real people right now. Like we are looking for inbred.
BOB GARFIELD: There will always be a demand for gods and goddesses of course, but the trend now is toward geek chic -- and worse.
WO
MAN: The majority of the people that I cast these days are beyond real.
BOB GARFIELD: Casting agent Cathy Carlton sits in her West L.A. office sifting through 8 by 10s.
CATHY CARLTON: Like this guy right here, Chip.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, he's not hideous but you know, Omar Sharif he ain't.
CATHY CARLTON:No. This girl -- I think she's about 6' 2" -sweet as can be -- you know? She works; she works a lot, but-- she's definitely not beautiful. Then we have Bunny Summers who is just a sweetheart and it's all about her weight and her jowls and she just makes the best of it, loves it; you know booked her many times. You know she just enjoys her, her layers there!
BOB GARFIELD:It may seem counter-intuitive in a town where superficiality runs so deep that a young woman would regard her weight and jowls as a meal ticket, but-- there you are. Take Vincent Schiavelli. He is not strictly speaking a handsome guy. His ultra-drooping eyes give him a Bassett Hound look that is so severe he's only been able to get parts in 80 movies - 80 movies. Just to put that in perspective - Brad Pitt has been in 23 movies. Of course none of Brad Pitt's was Rescue from Gilligan's Island.
VINCENT SCHIAVELLI: My face is my fortune, baby, but on the other hand, somehow the particular nature of my looks -- people might tend to think that I am a certain way that I'm not.
BOB GARFIELD:He's not deeply depressed, for example. Or deranged or a ghost -- even though he played one in Ghost. He's a trained actor who likes to take advantage of what he calls his physicality without the parts being about his physicality. When directors call looking for that strange-looking guy with the eyes, he'd prefer to say no -- but--
VINCENT SCHIAVELLI: You have to do them because you have to work, because you have bills to pay and you have expenses and so on and so forth. Then it's like-- ffffff-- [SIGHS] - okay, let's go to work. Yeah.
RICH SILVERSTEIN: I think we like to laugh, and we don't laugh at beautiful people.
BOB GARFIELD: Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, the San Francisco ad agency, has often cast TV spots with the un-beautiful. A recent commercial for E-trade was about a grotesque Gloria Swanson type getting an erotic pedicure from her pool boy. Another for Frito-Lay used a family of overweight trailer trash to demonstrate Frito's new crush-proof packaging.
WO
MAN: [SCREAMING] I can't [...?...]! [LAUGHTER] [...?...] [...?...]!!!
MAN: There's my gal!!!!!
BOB GARFIELD: They say there are no small parts; only small actors. These are extremely large actors cast for their girth, but Silverstein says he had no difficulty getting people to audition.
RICH SILVERSTEIN: Andy Warhol was so right. Everyone can be famous for 15 minutes. And no one says no.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, but you've got to wonder - when the agent calls saying Frito-Lay is looking for obese, obnoxious losers -- are you available -- what goes on in the actor's mind in terms of self-image, in terms of self-esteem, in terms of just plain human vanity. Doesn't that take a toll?
COCO BARAT: And I've played with some very interesting people such as Herve Villachez from Fantasy Island--
BOB GARFIELD: Meet Coco Barat of the Comedy Team Coco & Penny. Once upon a time she was a buxom young character actress and comedienne who got tantalizingly close to success in New York. Now she is in Hollywood, much older, much heavier, garishly clad and coiffed -- all teased hair and leopard skin -- still trying to break through.
COCO BARAT: I've done Law and Order and I played a landlady. [LAUGHS] Very often I play a Gypsy. In Carlito's Way I played a fortune teller. They're not casting me as a--glamorous young girl.
BOB GARFIELD: When Goodby, Silverstein was looking for a grossly sexual Gloria Swanson, Coco jumped at the opportunity.
COCO BARAT: I just love that when I -- wish I could do that when it was wonderful--
BOB GARFIELD: You wish you had the part where the idea was to look repulsive.
COCO BARAT: [LAUGHS]! I guess so. I don't mind being me. I don't mind at all.
BOB GARFIELD:I'm reminded of the words of James Baldwin which I read just now in Bartlett's Quotations. "The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." But maybe the reverse is true as well: the benefit we get from ugliness is a more intimate relationship with art.