Physical Beauty and Casting Decisions

Appearances do sometimes affect casting decisions though not always.  Sometimes a pretty girl gets the role because of her talent (ex. Emma Roberts' characters are usually not emphasized on beauty but character), not because she is hot but sometimes a girl gets cast as such for being hot.


In the movie "Love for Beginners" it starred both Rin Takanashi and Emi Takei.  I could really say that while both are pretty, Emi Takei is more on the "cute side" than Rin Takanashi is on the blazing side.  Compared to Ugly Betty which really needed all that annoying make-up and obviously artificial ugliness, Emi Takei (who I'd rate a lower beauty) is cast for the main role who is a geeky girl since it looks more convincing to do that outfit on Emi Takei than to that of Rin Takanashi who can be cast well as a Poison Ivy type seductress.  Nothing wrong with portraying Rin Takanashi as a nerd though, provided if she were a nerd that gets lusted after like Belle is.


There are roles that are only good for pretty actresses like campus chicks, femme fatales and seductresses. In the 90s, Kimberly's hotness in MMPR was emphasized.  In the 2000s her "successor" Rin Takanashi was later cast as a seductress in "Love for Beginners".  Ciara Hanna's role in Megaforce was the campus queen.  For Emma Roberts, I'd like to see her play a seductive villain than the more standard villain Scream 4.


When it comes to male attractiveness, there's some musts on casting them.  For example, I feel like for the plain girl falls for hot guy and eventually falls for her, you definitely need to get a hot guy who can act for this one.  For the role of Gaston-like characters (that is vain narcissists) it becomes easier to convince the audience with a handsome talented actor for those kinds of roles.  However I wouldn't mind casting an ugly guy to play a narcissist either since the vanity is a matter of attitude, not appearance.


Other roles like the main hero/heroine, leading man/lady, generic types of ally where beauty is just icing (ex. scientist, supervisor, manager, fellow super hero/heroine) or generic type of villains where beauty is just icing (ex. wicked stepmother, evil empress, slut, third party, etc.) is more of a matter of how well a man or woman can act the role regardless how pretty or how ugly they are.  You can even have a pretty geek (like Belle) or a handsome geek (like Spiderman) since such characters can be very real.  You can even have a smoking hot wicked stepmother (ex. Snow White's stepmother) as well.

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