#Typecast

[u-n-c-o-m-m-o-n]

Apparently the easiest way to get Sam Claflin in a movie is to promise him his character will die.

Me before you (2016)

Bagman (2024)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

and many more lmao

[milli-moi]

Let’s talk typecasting!

I began to do a full watch of Kathryn Hahn’s Filmography a few months back, as I went on I decided to start taking some notes on the typecastings I often saw, it’s been interesting actually, basically I’ve looked at sexuality, religion and parent-status. The list isn’t done yet so I won’t go too far into it

BUT

I’ve also been watching a decent chunk of Aubrey Plaza’s filmography when I realised how little of it I had seen.

So Kathryn is 51, Aubrey is 40 - yes there is a chunk of age difference between them but they are close to the same ‘playing age’ for a lot of things. They have done a similar amount of projects - IMDB has Aubrey in 98 and Kathryn in 85 but there are a bunch of credits which are for shorts that aren’t easy to find anymore for Aubrey.

Now I haven’t finished either of their Filmographies yet but I have watched a decent chunk of both and I’ve looked through them enough to be pretty sure I won’t find many more Mum roles for Aubrey in what I haven’t seen.

I don’t count voice work for this because it doesn’t really affect how an actress appears. I can absolutely see that Kathryn has the ‘Mum’ look though.

I have seen Aubrey play a Mum 6 times - two of which she is playing biologically female but is the ‘father.’

Kathryn has played a Mum 34 times..! Pretty sure Aubrey has also never played a visibly pregnant character and has only been pregnant on screen for one role.

It’s amazing to see how much this attests to their individual image both in terms of style and in terms of build - and no I don’t mean weight, I mean that Kathryn is just curvier generally. But it also probably has a lot to say about their early work and the things that created their image as an actor.

Also, just before people say it, Yes for Crossing Jordan Kathryn’s pregnancy was written in to the role but this is the only time that has happened. She was also actually pregnant during the filming of How Do You Know but she would most likely have been cast in the role of the pregnant character before she fell pregnant with Mae, or at least the role was written as a pregnant character without the pregnant actress attachment.

[love-ardour-anarchism]

man imagine if you played one dog on like Airbud the movie or something and then they just typecast you as "the dog" wouldn't that be fucked up

[nirvanabrainrot]

last night me and my best friend were typecasting our friendship as different duos from anime, I said Naruto and Sasuke and this mother fucker said i was sasuke because I'm emo and my mums side of the family are criminals 💀💀

[inbadgersdrift]

have you guys seen the episode of call the midwife where the midsomer bell ringing zealot plays a televised christmas carol service zealot

[hislittleraincloud]

LOL

[radiofrenzy]

jeff goldblum is typecast as the guy at the end of the rainbow

[ashleywool]

I still don't know my "type" and I'm sick of caring about it

In the early years of my Broadway dream-chasing, I often had to grapple with the concept of "type." That is, what is someone's "type" as an actor? How does the industry view them physically and energetically?

Maybe this is an autism thing, but I still don't really get it.

I get it in theory, but in practice, it always feels...wrong. Because you're told that there are rules, but there are always exceptions to the rules. You're told that your "type" will naturally emerge depending on the roles you get callbacks for, the roles you get cast in, the roles you almost get cast in but someone else just fits better.

It is very easy for me to define my type in negatives, by the things I can't do. There are "obvious no" roles, and there are "roles I could theoretically play but am not a natural fit." The "obvious no" roles are things like Effie White or Lady Thiang. The theoretical-but-not-perfect roles are sometimes harder to define, especially to people not "in the business." It's a game of "just because I can doesn't mean I should."

For instance, I can hit the high notes, but I don't have the right "flavor" of soprano for Christine Daae. I can cut my hair and don overalls and Doc Martens, but I'm not convincingly butch enough to play Enid Hoopes. I can learn and capably execute most of the choreography in A Chorus Line, but I don't have the nuanced, expressive qualities required for Cassie or Sheila. I played Eva Perón in a community theatre setting ten years ago, and I'm still really proud of the work I did on that show, but I'm not Latina, so I wouldn't try to play the role in a professional production nowadays, because the culture has shifted to prioritizing ethnic authenticity in a way that historically we haven't. And sure, the real Eva was a white Latina with a similar ethnic background to mine, so my playing her is "passable" in that it's not as blatantly inappropriate as Effie or Thiang, but there's still a difference between being a "passable" fit and being the "right" fit. And those differences become all the more important when it comes to representing marginalized groups who have traditionally been denied opportunities to play roles that they are authentically right for. (See also: autistic actors.)

All this to say: between the shifts in the culture and my increased maturity and introspection as a theatremaker, I've gotten pretty good at typing myself out of things. But that still leaves a lot of stuff that I can do, and The Industry People™ expect me to define myself even more specifically within that pool. I am nowhere near as good at that as I think I'm supposed to be at this point in my career. What I think of my type still conflicts annoyingly often with what others think. Or at least what others think upon first impression.

As far as I can tell, the biggest reason for this is the "wait, how old are you?" factor. Apparently, I look a lot younger than I am. Okay, fine. I'm short and I moisturize. Presumably, this is a good thing, especially for women. Because, the patriarchy, I guess. But for me, it's been...confusing.

A common thread in my community theatre experience was, I would initially get cast in a "younger" role, and would then get to play the "adult" roles in later shows after the directors got to know me better. This was all well and good as a tiny baby actressling hungry for the diversity of experience, but those are the experiences that built my resume--and The Industry People™ have told me that from a professional standpoint, my resume gives them whiplash.

The same year I played Eva Perón, I played Logainne in Spelling Bee. The next year, I was in final callbacks for Star-to-Be in the national tour of Annie, but they also had me sing "Tomorrow" because they thought maybe I could swing for the orphans too. I was 28. The year I turned 30, I played a twelve-year-old Alice in Wonderland in a children's theatre production, and then played Amy in Company.

Then, I got my Equity card, which apparently knocked another fifteen-to-twenty years off my playable age. I am thirty-six. In the EPA casting breakdown for HTDIO swings, Jessica's age is listed as 20. Last week--last week--I was called in to read for a 16-year-old in a feature film.

And look, I'm not complaining about the teens-to-early-20s roles. They're not bad roles. I'll happily play them until you decide I can't get away with it anymore.

But it's getting really weird to still not be at that point, and to still not know when I will get to that point. It feels almost like I'm being gaslit. I say I want to audition for a role that's closer to my actual age, and someone says "oh no, you're far too young for that," and I say "I'm actually five years older than the age range listed," then they look at me like I have three heads. Like I'm the one who's confused about a basic, quantifiable numerical fact of my existence.

But what do they expect me to do? Lie about my age? I might have been able to get away with that before the Internet, but not now. One slip of "hokay, so here's the Earth" gives me away instantly.

So...where does this leave me and my whiplash resume?

Do I keep listing Alice and Logainne and Wednesday Addams and Iola the factory girl in Parade even though I know I'm too old for them now? How do I know when to remove them?

Do I keep listing the roles that are closer to my actual age--or roles that I was probably too young for when I played them but have now appropriately aged into--even though I know there will still be people who think I'm too young? How do I know when the pushback will stop?

And most of all, how do I know when it's finally okay to stop caring about any of this? Because I'm sick of caring about it, and so is every other actor in the world, because none of us signed up to care about it in the first place. I just originated a principal role on Broadway that defied all the odds of what people thought was possible on Broadway, and it's REALLY tempting to say "you know what, maybe this is just evidence that I'm a really good actress who can do a lot of different stuff, and I am not going to make other people's whiplash my problem anymore."

But...I don't think I get to do that yet.

I don't think the systematic machinations of the theatre industry have caught up with the multifaceted humanity of its actors.

I'm using this downtime to try to figure out what I can do to get there. For myself, and for all of us.

[walking-talking-explosive-device]

GUYSSSS guess who is playing Heidi in my theatre class' production of Typecast (its a play) I am so happy

update: we might not be able to do the play

update again: we did it, I was so good at acting that when I was acting out a panic attack for a scene several other cast members literally stopped to ask if I was ok

[callersbooks]

Are you the steady stoic type or the teacher's pet? Maybe you like to give orders. Or take them? Get to know the cast of Callers: Emergence, our debut novel available at callersbooks.com

[farquaadstarsquad14]

i was kinda unhappy having my type cast being "funny and slightly stupid sidekick" but i think it's worse that it's now become "character who appears on stage for two scenes and does nothing else"

[average-emo-enigma]

Veronica Sawyer is literally me

Obsessed with being a good person, brunette, super similar naturally lower voice type and accent

My dream musical role

[inthewindtunnel]

Ollie Wride

Typecast

[radishanatomy]

they needed to cast an italian priest who never has fun, mourns the abolition of the tridentine mass, and smells oddly sweet. and they landed on sergio. twice.

the funniest thing about the conclave casting is that they went “hey so we need someone to play a traditionalist italian who wants to set the church back 100 years into the past and he’s also xenophobic. yk what i know the PERFECT man” and pulls out the same person who played padre pio

[lynxthewolf1]

I don’t do theater I’ve only been in one school musical but in MCRP I have 2 type cast child and little guy. There’s no in between I ethier play a sweet wholesome character who people want to protect or a child. Love playing theese characters so I just keep making them. I have other characters but in the words of one of my friends “Lynx you can’t play a mean character you don’t have a mean bone in your body” and he’s right I don’t unless u somehow piss me off enough to make me snap

[wickedzeevyln]

Typecast

Microvilli failed to send the mail todaythe neurons weren't able to process how hollowness taste the void of her absence the corrupted presencea diaphanous silhouette the scintilla of her essence if fate would be so kind as to lessen the fragrance of the putrid past that time wears with panachethe disfigured disquieting typecast.