Sorry Skykid, but being photogenic certainly is one of the elements of being taken in by the system. Just the way it is. Incidentally, there's more guff about "ability." One can argue that a fast runner's "ability" is, beyond the effort put in which is the same or even less than others, just what a person was born with. Certainly watching Usain Bolt run gives this impression. Obviously, trying to dismiss an actor just because of this is bankrupt.
I also don't see where I have stated that being photogenic is the most important "ability" an actor has. It is one of many things.
I would like it very much if more types of people with excellent core acting skills (using here the definition I think you would) could be seen in films - I'm personally not especially interested in the "photogenic" thing. But studios thing we need it, and if the constant obsession with news about the Beautiful People suggests, probably the public agrees.
Skykid wrote:Ben Kingsley, Joss Ackland, Gene Hackman, Pete Postlethwaite and Jim Broadbent, to name a few, certainly didn't find success because of their creamy looks.
Again, look up the definition of photogenic, rather than bloviating about what you think I meant. Sometimes I am guilty of misusing a word, but I felt I was already explicit enough about this the first time. Pete Postlethwaite, rest his soul, had a face that looked like it had been worn for an international foot race, then turned inside-out and worn on the way back...and that memorable face is, indeed, photogenic.
A non-anthropomorphic and incredibly stolid example might prove an illuminating target. To many people of Albania, they are eyesores. To tourists, however, they prove photogenic; merely because their warty profusion is entirely foreign and exotic, even if the things themselves are quite mundane. As a souvenir the tourists might buy a reproduction, sold with the tagline "We assumed that you could not afford to buy a big one." These are the roughly 700,000 bunkers erected by the xenophobic government of Enver Hoxha up until his death in 1985. They are just concrete walls with a mushroom cap. Of course, many Albanians have cause to resent them, and their proximity and proliferation bring many conflicting feelings - but mainly people have gotten slightly contemptuous after their years of familiarity. How could a bunker be photogenic? I don't know. Ask a tourist, not an Albanian.
I am also laughing at some of the names you guys are bringing up as "ugly" people. If even a small percentage more of the male half of the population had the rugged looks of Gene Hackman, the female world would be well pleased. Same for DeNiro from boagman's suggestions (arguably also true of his other choices). This is just embarrassing.
