My Rival is FAT: Typecasting in America vs. England

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming Limited Edition "Bad Quarto" of Cupid and Psyche, available this weekend from Amazon.com!

As the title says: "With Notes, Addendums, & Sundry Miscellanea for the Amusement of the Discerning Reader."

Basically, the DVD commentary version of the play in e-book form.

APHRODITE. The whole world's riddled through with doughy love And all for whom - for whom? - you blithely ask: For Psyche!  Fat and false and fulsome Psyche...

Ask any American actress what it’s like to audition, and she’ll tell you there’s all too often a sense of being sized up by the people behind the table not for your talent, but for whether or not you’re f*ckable.  

So, many American actresses starve themselves (when they really look better for the eating of a cheeseburger or two), tan, bleach, inject Botox, wear two sets of Spanx and a triple-padded bustier all to get the job.

Those who dare to look just as they are, tend to be cast only in age-inappropriate “character” roles.  For example, I spent my teens and twenties playing a variety of fifty year old disapproving mothers, as though the size of my bust were in direct correspondence to my age, like a tree.  Yet, although I “look” like the cheeky maid servant type, I can’t play the cheeky maid servant for beans.  Similarly, there are several actresses of my acquaintance who truly are beautiful, blonde bombshells…but would kill at the cheeky maid roles.  Yet because of their looks, are consigned forever to the giggling arm candy roles.

C'est la vie, some might say.  You've got to play the game.

However, it's worth noting that this sort of shallow typecasting seems to be less prevalent just across the pond in merrie olde England.  When I first arrived to study Shakespeare there, I was afraid that my role as Rosalind would be taken from me once my teachers saw who they had cast.  Instead, they treated me (wrap your brain around this for a moment, casting directors) like a human being.  Like a capable human being.  And, given how I attacked my Orlando’s clavicles, like a sexual human being.

There is nothing like a Dame:  Judi Dench and Maggie Smith
laugh at American conventions of beauty.

Nor is this outlook typical only in British academia.  Take a moment to look at the Twelve British Actors—I mean really look at them—and you’ll see that beyond actually allowing themselves to age, almost none of them are physical knockouts.  For example, I love Dame Judi Dench.  But if we were honest, she’s got no eyebrows.  Who doesn’t adore Dame Maggie Smith, particularly in her recent run as Lady Violet from Downton Abbey?  And yet, there’s clearly never been a smidge of silicon near her face.  Emma Thompson, whom I worship, is really rather plain: her hair and skin are the same colour, and both are a touch orange.  And yet, and yet the woman is luminous.  And in England, no one batted an eye at Dawn French’s Vicar of Dibley tying the knot with Richard Armitage.

Jessicas Alba and Beal: Apparently not twins.

Now take a look at any of the Pretty Young Things who played the panting arm candy in any given summer’s superhero blockbusters.  Can you discern a difference between one and another?  With all respect to Jessica Beal and Jessica Alba, it took me years to sort out who was whom.

This is not to disparage those American actresses who have been fortunate enough to be cast in anything at all.  Given that there are so few roles for women (let alone roles of worth), and yet there are four times as many actresses as roles, any actress you see actually working has already beaten the odds. 

Sometimes, the Pretty Young Thing is able—after many years—to make her role her own.  For example, Kaley Cuoco has parlayed what was supposed to just be the “dumb blonde next door” on The Big Bang Theory to a fully rounded character.  Sarah Michelle Gellar who began her acting career as a vamp on various teen soaps, found her tragi-comedic mojo poking fun at expectations by killing vampires on Buffy.  And Mindy Kaling and Melissa McCarthy are leading the charge for leading women of girth (although currently both are still relegated to comedic variations thereof).

The effect of typecasting on the psyches of young actresses cannot be overstated. 

I myself really began to believe that I was an unwanted nothing because I kept being shoved into “fat girl” roles, and being given “fat girl” costumes.  I found an escape through playing male roles—Feste the Jester was a revelation to me—but that only convinced me that I had no place as a Pretty Young Thing on-stage or off.

That is, until Rosalind.

I remember, I had cozied up to the hotel bar after performing catty-corner from Shakespeare’s birthplace, when I was suddenly joined by my teacher, Vivien Heilbron.

“That was good work tonight,” she said.

I thanked her.

“Yes,” she said, wafting one hand to signal the bartender for a drink.  “Grounded, funny, smart, sexy.”

I blushed and ducked my head.  “Sexy?” I asked.  “Really?” 

(I had done the scene with  Orlando when Rosalind’s dressed as a boy, remember.  Although, as mentioned, I had one glorious moment of [wo]manhandling his clavicles.)

Vivien laughed and accepted her drink like it was a magic wand.  “Yes,” she said.  “You.  Sexy.”  She sipped her drink.  “Did you hear what they were saying earlier?”

I shook my head.  Most of our party—which was made up of incredibly wealthy financiers who travelled every year to England to take in the season, and had seen the Twelve British Actors in their original star-making turns—actually had the audacity to walk out of the RSC’s (admittedly atrocious) As You Like It the night before.  After only half an hour.

“Well,” Vivien continued, raising her eyebrows at me as she murmured over the lip of her glass, “let’s just say they liked you so much better.”

As one might discern, this little conversation had a profound effect on me.  And I have attempted to pay it forward particularly to my actresses, whether casting or writing for them.  It’s been a particular joy of mine to cast those women who are forever put into “dumply” or “strict” or “awkward best friend” roles as the heroines instead.  And to dress them fantastically.

Similarly, I have been horrified to see a parade of young women coming through to audition for Psyche who, although in real life are grounded, powerful individuals, immediately slip into a higher vocal register, physically shy away from touch, and generally “act girly”…because that’s the behaviour that’s always gotten them the job.

However Psyche, we’ve discovered, is unapologetic.  Tall, thin, short, fat, dark, light, busty or flat—it doesn’t matter.  Psyche is unapologetically who she is: and the only actresses who can play her are those who willing to be vulnerably, unapologetically themselves.

Not “f*ckable,” but fascinating.

Which, I dare say, is fucking awesome.

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