Actors who were either too pretty or too ugly for the roles they played

Too pretty: Michelle Pfeiffer in Frankie and Johnny.

Gina McKee as Irene Forsythe from The Forsythe Saga. She was nowhere near a beautiful as every one of the characters on the show was making her out to be. Plus she was too old to play the character.

Too pretty: Logan Lerman in The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Babs in "The Mirror Has Two Faces" has to be the most unique case because she was too ugly and too pretty for that role at the same time: she was too pretty to play the pre-makeover Rose but still far too ugly to play the bombshell Rose in the second half of the film.

Too pretty: Emma Watson as Hermione Granger

Sharon Stone in Sliver: as an undersexed book editor? Oh no.

Jami Gertz as a “model” in Less Than Zero? Oh no.

Ben Feldman is too pretty as Jonah, floor worker in Superstore. Isn't Jonah a college graduate and of reasonably above average IQ? And a snob. Wouldn't he find something like a bookshop, or boutique, if retail, or city job, if lazy and inept, more suited to his station in life?

[quote]Too ugly: Hurd Hatfield in The Picture of Dorian Gray. He looked like a mummy.

I actually thought Hurd Hatfield worked rather well in that role since Dorian Gray is supposed to be an artificial & unnatural looking character.

(And the film has a good performance by George Sanders and an Oscar-nominated role from DL fave Angela Lansbury.)

Zachary Scott as Monte Beragon in "Mildred Pierce." The character of Monty was supposed to be an irresistible playboy stud at whom women threw themselves.

But we got this instead:

Rachel Leigh Cook in "she's all that" - too pretty

Taron Egerton in Rocketman. Sorry Elton, you were never close to being as attractive or hot as Taron.

Not "too ugly," but Kristen Stewart was miscast as Snow White in "Snow White and the Huntsman."

I haven't read the novel Mildre Pierce. I think Zachary Scott is purrfect as a lizardy rich boy "playboy" however. He's very much a type as that character. Effete, old money, immoral. Guy Pearce in the remake was so far from that, either.

Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in GWTW was too ugly, too old. I know it's been discussed here in depth but I fall strongly on the 'nope' side of the argument.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful..."

So they get a great beauty to portray her.

Moss is honestly too ugly to play the the way they write her character in Handmaid's Tale. Every male she runs into wants to fuck her! That's not who she is.

I never thought Anne Baxter was right for the role of Eve Harrington in "All About Eve."

I thought Zachary Scott was handsome, and appropriately oily for the role

I tought Eve was a almost a dog. Never understood the casting.

You bitches!

I received an Oscar nomination.

R14, I agree with you. Ashley was supposed to be around the same age as Scarlett and Melanie, not 20 years older

One example I thought of is Winona Ryder in Little Women...the character basically announces that she's ugly but Winona looked downright radiant

[quote] Carrie was described as looking fat and ugly in the book.

Yep, but what I wonder is, in the book, does she blossom the night she goes to the prom, the way Sissy does in the original, turning out to be more attractive than most of the other girls? It's one early Stephen novel I haven't read personally.

I've often wondered if the nomination Anne Baxter received cancelled out Bette Davis that year. They were both nominated in the Lead Actress category, and that may have hurt Bette's chances to win a 3rd Oscar.

Unlike Katharine Hepburn, she didn't win any more Oscars after the 1930's.

Too unattractive - Emma Watson as Belle in Beauty And The Beast. Felt like handsome 30 something Gaston was chasing after an 8 year-old dyke. Creepy.

So it sounds like they hit it out of the park with Chloe as Carrie .

[quote] in the book, does she blossom the night she goes to the prom, the way Sissy does in the original, turning out to be more attractive than most of the other girls?

IIRC, yes, Carrie (in the book by Stephen King) did blossom on prom night, with the help of the Amy Irving character.

Kiera Knightley in The Imitation Game was way prettier than the real life woman she played. On the other hand, the real Alan Turing didn't look like an alien like Cumberbitch does

So DL would have Edna May Oliver play Scarlett and Freddie Bartholemew play Ashley.

Barbra was too ugly to play a high priced call girl in Nuts.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. When the Joker strolled in and said "Hello beautiful!" the whole audience laughed.

R28, when did anyone say that? Ashley doesn't need to be a kid, just closer in age to Scarlett

Damn. You people are good! This is kind of a tough category!

[Quote]Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. When the Joker strolled in and said "Hello beautiful!" the whole audience laughed

Yes, I honestly felt bad for Maggie G during that scene.

Randolph Scott would have been a better Ashley. He was young, handsome, and Southern.

R17 No way, Anne was PERFECT as Eve. Deliciously wicked. I don't think most people really cared about what she looked like. She was just supposed to be younger than Bette, which Anne was in real life.

R23 I doubt Anne received that many votes. I do recall reading somewhere that the race was between Judy Holliday and Gloria Swanson. I think Gloria won the Golden Globe for a drama film that year whereas Judy won the one for a comedy film. Neither of the Eve ladies figured into the equation. And think that role was considered Bette's comeback role after being in some shitty films in the late 40s. The Oscar that Bette probably came closest to winning was the one for the Baby Jane film.

When Harry Met Sally.

I know looks aren’t everything but 80’s Meg Ryan falling for Billy Crystal? No.

Same could be said for Annie Hall.

Too Ugly: Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby and Drive

Queer As Folk- It was SO FAKE that the Ted Schmidt character was presented as old and unattractive. Scott Lowell was not BEAUTIFUL but he was a fairly cute guy-NOT old and NOT unattractive.

Well, R36, I know Meg was not a great beauty, but it's within the realm of possibility that sweet Billy could have fallen for her. Even though she wasn't in his league.

Kiki Dunst had the youth on her side in Spiderman, but not beauty. The red hair did not do her any favors.

Eric Stolz in Mask, he took a job away from an ugly actor with that role.

Billie Piper in Penny Dreadful. She looks like a bullfrog.

Mare Winningham in anything.

Jonah left business school, R7

Deneuve playing a factory worker from (old) Czechoslovakia in DANCER IN THE DARK was kinda silly.

most female roles are cast with actresses who are far too pretty, no wonder the society has unrealistic expectations of female beauty. Having said that, I agree that kirsten wasnt a bombshell like MJ, tho she is quite pretty.

Ashley in Gone with the wind is a super fucking miscast, he didnt even have a full head of hair. In Little Women, Winona Ryder as homely, tomboyish Jo is a hoot, just like Saoirse is. Though I think they might style Saoirse as a bit more dishevelled looking, Winona looked like a fairy princess. While Lizzy Bennet is supposed to be a pretty girl, she is still not supposed to be a knockout beauty like Keira Knightley is in P&P. Also, many of the men paired with Audrey Hepburn were old and ugly AF. Why the fuck would she fall for someone who looks like her father, in Sabrina?

Re: Jonah. "leaving business school" I would understand to mean leaving an MBA program. "business school" usually means the masters. That's the way I understood it.

R43 Yes she is too beautiful in everything.

The problem with the actor playing Ashley in GWTW was his LACK of masculinity. He was feminine and kind slightly built.

He was feminine and slightly built.

Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. The real Lawrence was like 5'4" and okay looking at best

R49, but GWTW focused a lot on Ashley's refined and elegant build as a comparison to Rhett's character. You were supposed to think the genteel Ashley would never do a single thing wrong, while the rakish Rhett would scandalise every woman he came in contact with. To that end, it makes sense that they went with different builds in Scarlett's two love interests (I will not acknowledge the troll in the middle).

[quote] Ashley was supposed to be around the same age as Scarlett and Melanie, not 20 years older

Wasn’t he supposed to be bearded as well?

Joseph Fiennes was a very flattering take on Shakespeare.

The Crown on Netflix. The actress playing the Queen , her sister and her mother are a lot more attractive than the person they were portraying. The opposite for the actor playing Prince Philip. He was NOT as attractive as the real Prince Philip was at 35 year old.

Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding.

Ashley was supposed to be blond and have delicate features, in contrast to Rhett, who is very rugged looking and not conventionally handsome, and very good casting with Clark Gable I should add. Ashley is supposed to be very handsome, a pretty boy essentially. The actor was ugly.

[quote]Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. The real Lawrence was like 5'4" and okay looking at best

As Noel Coward said at the time, O'Toole was so pretty that it should have been called "Florence of Arabia".

[quote] Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. When the Joker strolled in and said "Hello beautiful!" the whole audience laughed.

I have never understood the attraction to her brother or her. Jake looks unwashed and unattractive in every role.

Harry Hamlin in Clash of the Titans made me gay

R59- I was NEVER taken with Jake's looks but he's better looking than his sister.

R60- Harry Hamlin always looked GAY to me.

CGM was totally miscast in the Carrie remake. She was even more beautiful than the pretty girl part.

She did what she could with it though. I actually prefer the rampage in the remake to the original.

I went to school with Jake. He is not classically good looking, but, in person, he has a presence. He dresses very well, carries himself in a certain way. Can't explain it. Could be all the money he has too that allow him to maintain this style that stands out. Maggie, however, is just not pretty.

My answer for this is Emma Watson as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Belle is supposed to be, well, beautiful - and she just isn't. I think that is why the movie did not do well. I couldn't get past it.

Jake made me quiver at one time. He is a sexy man body attached to a cute puppy dog face.

It's an otherwise excellent film but....in Rear Window you wonder what Grace Kelly sees in Jimmy Stewart. She's a gorgeous socialite, he's a guy with a broken leg old enough to be her dad who freely admits he doesn't make much money. Jimmy was in his 40s but looked 60

Judith Light as Ryan Whites mom,

R66- Jimmie Stewart looked SO FUCKING OLD by the 1950's. He seemed so OLD and FRAIL.

LOL, Emma Watson is beautiful cmon

R64, Beauty and the Beast made like a billion dollars worldwide. What world are you living in where it didn't do well? Emma Watson is probably drop dead gorgeous by the standards of 18th century peasants, anyway

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was way too pretty for Henry VIII, not to mention way too thin. And such a whiner. Not even remotely like the real man.

She isn’t ugly. But Claire Danes was a bit of an odd choice to play a glowing star that fell from the heavens in Stardust. Her peculiar face is much better suited to Carrie in Homeland.

Oh wow, I thought I had heard that the movie performed less than expected. My mistake then. But I really don't think Emma Watson is beautiful. I didn't say she was ugly, but I don't think she has the type of overt objective beauty, the kind you associate with Belle, that appeals to young American kids and tweens. I can't speak for other parts of the world since I live in the US.

But if the majority of the world has a different opinion, then I am wrong I guess.

[quote] She isn’t ugly. But Claire Danes was a bit of an odd choice to play a glowing star that fell from the heavens in Stardust.

Is that Claire Danes?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was far too GAY LOOKING with those feminine lips and the GAY STARE in his eyes to play the very hetreo looking Henry the VIII.

R74 Yes.

R72 I thought she was very pretty in Stardust. Not conventional bombshell maybe, but she captured that ethereal essence you would imagine a fallen star to have, lol. It made a contrast with conventional beauty Sienna mIller's character

Who the hell can concentrate on Shakespeare’s language when involuntarily jerking off to Marlon Brando in a toga?

Jacob Tremblay

R78 Ah Mark Antony!! We saw this movie in high school english.... Julius Caesar still remains my fav shakespeare play, LMAO

One thing I love about HBO is that it has cast non-gorgeous people in many of its best series (Sopranos, Six Feet Under) and I think that that has made a huge difference in the effect of the shows. Broadcast networks and Hollywood films to the contrary cast people like Charlize Theron and “uglify” them instead of just casting people who look appropriate for their roles.

Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood. That every hot vampire, werewolf, warlock, etc., falls in love with her is more far fetched than the premise of supernatural creatures roaming Louisiana.

Jessica Chastain in the help. In the book, the character she plays is supposed to be extremely beautiful, and I expected someone prettier to play that role. Not someone who needs ten hours of hair and makeup to become passable.

*The Help

Jessica Chastain is stunning, wtf? Yall blind

Agree. Chastain is both beautiful and edgy looking.

R72 I would have complained about her in Romeo + Juliet, but it’s hard when your costar is more beautiful than you.

Kiki Dunst is beautiful & was well suited for her Sounder role.

No way, she's a bland, washed-out Bryce Dallas Howard doppelgänger. Every role she is in that requires her to be remotely attractive mean she has to blast on makeup to look remotely attractive.

everyone looks good in a retouched headshot R86.

and it's not even a great picture, she looks old there.

Julia Roberts in [italic]Charlie Wilson's War[/italic] - Joanne King Herring was stunningly beautiful in her youth as well as charming. Disturbingly right wing, but so gorgeous. This movie is one of the rare occurrences in which the real people were better looking than the stars who played them.

R64 Beauty and the Beast didn’t do well? It made 1.2 billion worldwide, making it the second highest grossing film of 2017.

r92, in that shot she looks like a drag queen with a bad nose job

R93, meet R70.

[quote]Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood. That every hot vampire, werewolf, warlock, etc., falls in love with her is more far fetched than the premise of supernatural creatures roaming Louisiana.

This is an epic example of trying to shoehorn an actress into a role she is simply wrong for in every respect. Sookie should have been played by a charismatic, conventionally pretty hot blonde with big boobs. That's what the character calls for, and Hollywood is full of them, so casting Paquin made no sense at all. She's often been quoted as saying she had to 'fight' for the role, that Alan Ball thought she was wrong for it. Why he went against his own instincts to cast her is anyone's guess, but I suspect it had something to do with HBO'S raging boner at the time for anyone who came more from the world of cinema than TV - they were dazzled by her Oscar. But they fucked their show on a fundamental level with that move.

Also casting another vote for Emma Watson as Belle. I don't care how successful the movie was - she was too old (as were Luke Evans and Dan Stevens) and has always been more cute than pretty, much less drop dead beautiful, as Belle should be. When the animated character is more attractive than her live-action counterpart - FAIL.

"But they fucked their show on a fundamental level with that move."

How? It was a big hit.

R71 tell us more! Was Anne Boleyn as pretty as her portrait shows her to be? Did Henry have halitosis? Which courtier was most hung?

Tilda Swinton in Orlando. As a ginger male, she was ugly. Ginger women can only look good with a lot of makeup.

I didn't have a problem with Sookie Stackhouse looking like she did. Paquin was ok as an actress. I'm gay and must not have paid attention to the logic, being busy looking at some of the handsome men on that series.

R46

I think I could count Audrey's age-appropriate leads on one hand.

The absolute worst though wasn't Bogie in Sabrina, it was Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon. He was so OLD in that movie, and his character was supposed to be a playboy. The role should have been played by a man 20 years younger, or the character should have been rewritten to be an elderly former playboy finally giving in and settling down.

Matt Damon imo wasn't good-looking enough in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Matt Damon looked pretty good. There is no reason Ripley has to be really handsome.

Natalie Portman was all wrong for Closer. Anybody read the play? It was practically written for Angelina Jolie.

I recently watched the 1982 remake of Cat People. Did people really think Nastassia Kinski was that beautiful? All I kept thinking was, why is he chasing that 10-yr old boy when absolutely gorgeous Annette O'Toole is standing right there?

Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club. The character inspired The Pretty Ugly Girl in Not Another Teen Movie.

Olivia Newton John in Greese. She was too good looking to need a skank makeover at the end of the movie.

[quote][R72] I would have complained about her in Romeo + Juliet, but it’s hard when your costar is more beautiful than you

That is a good one! I simply did not understand casting Danes in R+J. Plain, plain, plain.

Pretty much every French romantic film shows a gorgeous young woman and an average to below average man up to 20 years older...Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, I'm looking at you.

Barbra felt she was too beautiful to play Fanny Brice.

Not sure how I feel about Tommy Lee Jones playing Doolittle Lynn in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” No physical resemblance to Doo, but did a good job in the role and had chemistry with Sissy Spacek (as Loretta Lynn).

Mark Ruffalo as Larry Kramer in "The Normal Heart". Even though not conventionally handsome, Ruffalo is much too beautiful for the role.

Angelina Jolie as Gia Carangi in [italic]Gia[/italic].

Of course, Angelina is striking, not ugly. However, I never understood the hype over her lips. I think they're too big for her face. Maybe it's the plastic surgery (not sure how much she had done by the time she was in [italic]Gia[/italic]), because at some angles Jolie looks cartoonish.

Anyway, she was able to capture some of Gia's edginess and androgynous qualities, but she didn't come close to Gia's skill as a model. The real Gia was a sultry beauty. I can't think of an actress who could have matched her in looks.

Re Matt Damon in Ripley, he was attractive in various ways but not breathtakingly gorgeous as Jude Law was. And that’s as it had to have been. Tom Ripley is much smarter than Dickie, but Dickie is more beautiful and Tom wants to become him.

And regarding Juliet, I don’t think that she necessarily has to be Aphrodite incarnate. The most important part of Juliet’s character is her bold brattiness. I listened to a Folger Shakespeare Library podcast interview with Olivia Hussey and she basically said that she thought she blew her audition for Juliet and still thinks that she did in a way, but the director cast her from among all the gorgeous girls who auditioned specifically because she was a temperamental, histrionic teenager who was too naive to understand that she was supposed to be less demanding and more of a professional. He always read Juliet as irreverent and uncompromisingly willful, and he wanted a girl who would be able to have mercurial mood swings on camera to emphasize that Juliet and Romeo were really adolescent kids caught up in their passions, not making necessarily rational decisions and not caring about consequences. So the director would be critical and say nasty things to her between or during takes until she was enraged and frustrated and threaten to quit, and then he would tell her after the scenes that that fiery Juliet is what he needed to see on camera. After hearing that interview, I think of R and J differently, less as noble starcrossed lovers and more as impetuous kids, and it really makes for a more intetesting story. Beautiful or not, a soft, angelic Juliet isn’t a very interesting one. Zeffirelli read Juliet as being totally controlling and domineering and basically driving all the action with her whims, and Romeo as a dumb horny puppy who reacted to her.

[quote]Natalie Portman was all wrong for Closer. Anybody read the play? It was practically written for Angelina Jolie.

Portman has a fat stripper ass, perfect for a pole dancer. Jolie has a bony boy's ass. Terrible casting physically.

Portman had the perfect body for it.

[quote] Re Matt Damon in Ripley, he was attractive in various ways but not breathtakingly gorgeous as Jude Law was. And that’s as it had to have been. Tom Ripley is much smarter than Dickie, but Dickie is more beautiful and Tom wants to become him.

I thought Damon was perfect. He's essentially beneath Dickie, both as far as looks and stature generally. His conniving, his oddity, and all of this as some sort of closeted personality -- how it speaks to self-hatred, even as he murders others -- is portrayed perfectly by Damon. I think it's one of the best things he's done.

Hugh Jackman playing P. T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman

That's exactly what I meant re Watson R96, thanks for saying it much better than I could. And completely agree about Paquin/Sooki.

^ R64 & R73

Jack Davenport was so much better looking than Damon; they looked mismatched.

Ripley was styled as a geek/stud chameleon, which fit his psychological profile. Here they even put him in a neon diaper that showcases an attractive body in an uneasy way. I think it was just really well done and Damon was perfectly suited to the role. If he had been just a gorgeous male modelesque actor, a Superman type, who put on glasses and was...a male model in glasses, then the movie overall would have lost a lot of its gravity even if the actor were very talented. This film depends on Ripley being “off” in every way. He’s charming but creepy. He’s handsome one moment, less so from a different angle or with a different expression. It keeps the other characters and the viewers unsettled when watching him, trying to settle on what to think about him.

Watching this seconds-long shot then and now, I cycle through:

—Huh, he looks like Hillary Swank with short hair.

—Whoa! That body! Fuck me, Matt Damon! Why does he look so much better from a distance?!

—Wait. Is he wearing...what is that? It’s like a dayglo diaper.

Speaking of Ripley, Alain Delon was too exquisitely beautiful to play him in "High Noon." As if a head turner like him could slink around unnoticed, or pass for someone else.

Then we have Sarah Jessica Parker as the "beautiful fiancee" in "Leaving Los Vegas." She clomps through the movie, posing and tossing her mane. She seriously wants us to believe she's so stunning that one glimpse of her spellbinds a rich gangster into the whole ridiculous "I must have her at any cost!" premise of the plot. I say neigh.

SJP’s career as a leading love interest defies Hollywood conventions, and because I don’t like to be mean, I will leave it at that.

I think Jamie Lynn Sigler was a little too conventionally pretty for The Sopranos. I’m not sure what sort of genetic blender could have produced her from Tony and Carmela. But she was good in the role. Lady Gaga has a face that would have been a better fit for Meadow.

R79, What role in what movie?

Tyrion Lannister was supposed to be fugly and it is part of his underlying bitterness and why he falls so hard for the whore Shae, but Peter Dinklage is actually a decent looking man.

R105 Probably helped that Nastassia looked like a cat.

R106 a lot of different characters inspired NATM 😄

Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. "Pretty" is NOT that horse-mouthed stinker. You can't polish a turd.

Molly Ringwald was originally supposed to have the Pretty Woman part.

[quote] Tyrion Lannister was supposed to be fugly and it is part of his underlying bitterness and why he falls so hard for the whore Shae, but Peter Dinklage is actually a decent looking man.

Dinklage is one of the best parts of the series. In this case, the casting was an improvement. Sometimes what works on the page doesn't work on the screen.

Michelle Pfeiffer was beyond ludicrous casting for Frankie and Johnny. Garry Marshall should have been forced to turn in his DGA card for casting her.

Everyone is doing a good job. Paquin as Snookie, hell no. Claire as Juliet, absolutely not. Leslie Howard in GWTW is maybe the worst in history. Scarlett, Ashley, and Melanie are in their late teens when the book starts and ends when they are in their mid 20s. R6 I think Jamie Gertz is pretty and very pretty in "Less Than Zero" but she is completely wrong for the part. I'm gonna add Rose McGowan to the list for "Jawbreaker". Her and the blonde actress with the under eye bags who gets the makeover. Nigga please. Both look like straight up white trash. River Phoenix was way too beautiful to play the thirsty nerd in "Sneakers". I think all of QAF is miscast. A joke. Jolie as Gia doesn't even come close to the real Gia. SJP is character actress all the way. Emma Watson as Belle, hahahaha. Joanne Whalley Kilmer as Scarlett in the sequel. And with dark brown eyes! hahaha. I've always thought Cameron Diaz is ugly as fuck and hated when they cast her as hot/beautiful. In fact, those Charlie's Angels movies, yuck. Drew Barrymore?! 👀 That's another one. haha.

[quote] I recently watched the 1982 remake of Cat People. Did people really think Nastassia Kinski was that beautiful? All I kept thinking was, why is he chasing that 10-yr old boy when absolutely gorgeous Annette O'Toole is standing right there?

Sorry, but Annette O'Toole doesn't come anywhere close to Nastassja Kinski's exotic beauty.

Meryl Streep in SOPHIE'S CHOICE. The character is supposed to be drop dead gorgeous. Every male character remarks what a gorgeous creature she is. Even Nazis make a pass at her while incarcerated and make false promises because she's just too beautiful. But Meryl, while attractive in her own way, wouldn't win a beauty pageant or be first/second runner-up.

The same goes for Emma Watson in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! Belle is supposed to be beauty personified, but Watson looks like her brother in drag. (Really, she resembles her brother.)

Douglas Booth was far too pretty to play plain Nikki Sixx in THE DIRT, and costar Daniel Webber while cute & effervescent wasn’t near pretty enough to play glam princess Vince ‘Dude, Looks like a Lady’ Neil.

Although he did a great job, I thought John Hurt was embarrassingly ugly and too old in Love and Death in Long Island. Ronnie was supposed to be about 25; Giles looked as if he were pushing 60, and very lined and wrinkled besides.

Almost every actress who has played Jane Eyre is prettier than plain Jane.

Sorry J.R. Tolkien - you're no Nicholas Hoult.

R123 It's "Purple Noon" and "Honeymoon in Vegas." Jeez Louise, man.

R97, they fucked up True Blood with Paquin's casting as Sookie precisely because of what we've been saying here - it wasn't remotely believable that she was catnip to all of these extraordinary supernatural men. She wasn't beautiful enough, hot enough, charismatic enough for what Sookie required. The show was successful in spite of her, not because of her.

R138, the one actress who played Jane Eyre that was actually truly plain was Charlotte Gainsbourg. I liked her performance, even though she was too Euro for it.

R113, the main problem I had with Angelina as Gia is that a big part of Gia's appeal as a model was her ambiguous ethnicity - we're so used to that now that a lot of people maybe don't know how unusual it was at the time. It was one of the reasons she took the industry by storm. Cindy Crawford, 'Baby Gia', had some of that too. But Angelina didn't. She doesn't have Gia's Mediterranean, possibly biracial look. She just looks like a white girl.

Andrew garfield as eduardo saverin in the social network.If THAT had been strutting around harvard his dorm would of had a queue around the block and not hanging around geeky loner zuckerberg!

"Olivia Newton John in Greese. She was too good looking to need a skank makeover at the end of the movie."

She was also about 10 years too old to be believable as a high schooler

"Andrew garfield as eduardo saverin in the social network.If THAT had been strutting around harvard his dorm would of had a queue around the block and not hanging around geeky loner zuckerberg!"

Really? I consider him attractive but not drop dead gorgeous.

R143 Garfield was geeky in Social Network. He wouldn't have been man on campus at Harvard. He can be attractive but also a little ugly depending on angle/lighting.

"Dude looks like a Lady" is about the guy from Poison. Not Vince.

Also, Vince Neil was never really good looking. Just a sweaty drunk, abusive to women and always on the fast track to fatty.

None of them were good looking and the music doesn't hold up.

Why was he abusive to women?

John Malkovich is hideous and how could so many women lust after him as Valmont. R138 Jane Eyre was English and Charlotte is half English on her mothers side. She can speak in a perfect British accent. She was believable as a not beautiful love interest that Rochester would fall for. She was perfect.

In most of Barbra's early films, people are always going on about hos pretty or gorgeous or sensational she is. It's like she has it written in her contract.

r147 here my post was for r141.

[quote] The main problem I had with Angelina as Gia is that a big part of Gia's appeal as a model was her ambiguous ethnicity - we're so used to that now that a lot of people maybe don't know how unusual it was at the time. It was one of the reasons she took the industry by storm. Cindy Crawford, 'Baby Gia', had some of that too. But Angelina didn't. She doesn't have Gia's Mediterranean, possibly biracial look. She just looks like a white girl.

The industry has always needed a couple standouts who were the antithesis to the All American girl next door. Janice Dickinson who was more successful than Gia, was also ethnically ambiguous. Gia's appeal and what ultimately made her a star was the duality of being a beautiful girl who had a considerable masculine edge. She had a toughness about her that shown through even in her Cosmo/Scavullo photos. Patti Hansen also had this quality. Angelina may not have looked like her but she damn sure was able to convey that rawness and wildness. Jolie, who was also a heroin addict, was certainly able to play that up too.

[quote]Pretty much every French romantic film shows a gorgeous young woman and an average to below average man up to 20 years older...Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, I'm looking at you.

except of course the ones which don't. try looking at me, dumbass. i'm going places

Richard Madden as John Reid

I find Chloe Grace Moretz hard to look at, so the concept of her being too pretty for anything is a laugh.

Luke Evans was a very underwhelming Gaston. Emma Watson was pretty enough but more importantly had the personality for Belle.

Gia looked good in some pics and hard in others. Angelina was probably the best they could have come up with.

Damon was perfect for Ripley.

R153, I agree Chloe is ugly! She's got an ugly heart-shaped face and a shapeless square body.

I can't believe they released this movie poster. Emma looks fuggo on it! Which one is supposed to be the beast again?

I hate to say it because I LOVE her, but....Glenn Close in both Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons. We're expected to believe that Michael Douglas would pass up the pretty Anne Archer as his wife for a one-night stand with Glenn? Or that John Malkovich would do whatever she asked for just so that he could end up having sex with her?

R110, actually she thought she was born to play Fanny Brice- troll

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate. I kept wondering during all the "Sharon has no lines" SJW hubbub a couple weeks back if QT did that purposely because he knew Robbie was a substandard Tate in the looks dept. But who could really measure up in HW today?

[R142] the actor who played Divya Narenda was much plainer than the actual person, who was very attractive during his Harvard years.

I can almost justify SJP as a leading lady because even though her face is not attractive, she had an amazing body when she was younger. So she could easily play the hot leading lady, if not the stunningly beautiful one. Now, she is older and the body is nothing amazing, yet on Divorce, every man she comes across (including very good looking, successful ones) falls at her feet. That is not only completely not believable but it takes away from the reality of Divorce, which the show purports to portray, particularly for older people whose looks have gone away.

Yes R153, Gia was more beautiful than Jolie, but what other actress could have reasonably played her? Jolie is beautiful (though not as beautiful as Gia) but she more importantly had the hardness and edginess to her look and a rebellious personality that Gia had. You needed someone who had all those quality, and Jolie was a good choice imo.

[quote]But Angelina didn't. She doesn't have Gia's Mediterranean, possibly biracial look. She just looks like a white girl.

Is the Mediterranean really known for creating "biracial" people? Arabs are Semites, for instance, but even as there is a mix of groups in that part of the world most of them are Caucasian -- someone with a mix of Arab and European ancestry is still a homogeneous racial mixture, the difference would be as an ethnic argument.

Gale Harold in QAF. Good looking guy but nowhere near hot enough to justify all these guys wanting to sleep with him

Nancy Allen in Dressed To Kill. She strips at the end and...she has thunder thighs.

Fuck you Roman (R133), but you're so right about Nastassia. What a beauty. Her nose alone is to die for.

Somewhat obscure, but I recently watched a French film (Samba) with Charlotte Gainsbourg and two men gape at her in awe when she walks into a party and I could only think "how did the director get the actors to take the scene seriously?"

R147 & R158 miss the point of Close/Malkovich in ..LIAISONS. It’s about chemistry and attitude, which they brought. Both aptly cast for their striking personalities with presence, and exceptionally cruel faces.

R167 Meh. I prefer Ryan and Sarah Michelle.

Beautiful, statuesque, crisply accented Jennifer Connelly (Irish-Norwegian-Polish-Russian) as ugly, frumpy, thickly accented Alicia Nash (Salvadoran) in A Beautiful Mind.

R169 I remember that Salma Hayek was considered for the part but for some reason didn't wind up doing it. I don't recall if she turned it down or what, but when Connelly was announced for the film not many people batted an eyelash. I mean, there were complainers but they were not mainstream.

John Forsythe as Blake on Dynasty. The original Blake was George Peppard (from Breakfast at Tiffanys and The A Team). John was too old and too ugly to make the whole "Alexis is trying to steal him away" thing believable.

I think some people are mistaking an actor's looks for their charisma or sexual presence. A not very attractive person can be striking, commanding, intriguing. John Forsythe on Dynasty had a kind of regal quality that made his Alpha status believable. The sexual relationships flowed from that - not the other way around.

Just like Aristotle Onassis, r172. Not a great looker but certainly considered a prize.

Asa Butterfield in Hugo... he was supposed to be a street urchin in 1930s Paris.

To be fair, Asa Butterfield is now ugly enough to play that role, R174. They just missed on the timing.

Chrissy Metz in Breakthrough. Way too pretty!

I wonder what kind of drugs Brian de Palma was on when he cast Hilary Swank in The Black Dahlia; her character was supposed to be the spitting image of the one Mia Kirshner played. On what planet does horse-faced Swank resemble Kirshner?!

R105, I thought the same thing. Annette O'Toole was so stunning. Kinski isn't unattractive, but O'Toole was so much more alluring.

R177, I remember seeing that in theaters and having to stifle a laugh. I do remember her doing a fun mid-Atlantic accent, though. I thought that was a nice touch, but her face alone made her incredibly miscast for that role. Maybe she and Rose McGowan should have switched roles.

r171, for what it's worth, Forsythe looked like this in 1955, when the characters of Blake and Alexis first married.

R156, the appeal of the Glenn character in Fatal Attraction was that she was easy, not necessarily that she was gorgeous. Plenty of guys cheat with average looking women, like John Edward's and Ah-nuld

R158, in what world is Margot Robbie ugly? If anything, she's too pretty for many of the roles she played. She was too good looking for her role in Mary Queen of Scots

R181 I believe that poster was simply saying that Sharon Tate was prettier by comparison.

Wikipedia says that Eva Green was first offered Swank's role in The Black Dahlia but she turned it down because she didn't want to be typecast as a femme fatale. How the fuck did they go from Eva Green to that manly trailer park trash Swank?!

I'm chuckling at the people who are saying Emma Watson is beautiful and drop dead gorgeous. No. She's plain. I don't care how much money Beauty and the Beast made. Watson was no Belle. She was the anti Belle. I'll buy Anna Paquin as Sookie on True Blood. The character had magic fairy blood that made her scent irresistible, so that squares.

Only on the Datalounge is Emma Watson considered ugly

Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. She looked like a grandmother from Middle America. By comparison, Anna Wintour who was the inspiration behind her character, has always had a pencil-thin model figure, as do a lot of other wealthy middle-aged white females.

Most magazine editors are not gorgeous, Meryl was fine

R185 nobody here called her ugly, ya tit. Just far too plain to play a character who everyone in her family/village nicknamed "Beauty."

No comments on how Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall's character) in The Shining was described as being a beautiful, bubbly, blonde former HS cheerleader in the book?

I forgot about Swank in The Black Dahlia. Ridiculous. Also, Jake Gyllenhaal as The Prince of Persia. 😂

Emmy Rossum was my choice for Emmy back when they were casting the film. There was a group of us that were vocal online about that, but we figured that Disney wanted Emma Watson's Harry Potter fanbase. We were right.

*my choice for Belle, I meant.

The new Aladdin movie is a dumpster fire, casting-wise. Jasmine and Aladdin are neither young and pretty enough (and Aladdin has distracting gayvoice), and Jafar is TOO young and pretty; my 8-lb miniature dachshund gives off more menace.

Belle should have been an unknown beauty with a voice from the theatre. People see those movies regardless. Look at Aladdin. Emma Watson was a terrible choice. Her and the CGI killed it. Unwatchable.

I’ve never found Leonardo DiCaprio attractive and could never buy Claire Danes passing up gorgeous Paul Rudd to be with Leo in Romeo and Juliet.

Speaking of Baz Luhrman, Tara Morice was too homely to win over the stunning Paul Mercurio in Strictly Ballroom. No surprise they featured his face on most of the movie posters and promo material. Love the movie though.

R123, it's "Purple Noon", dear.

"High Noon" is something entirely different.

Margot Robbie was hideously miscast as Tonya Harding. Harding got bad scores from the judges partly because she was in no way cute or appealing. Robbie’s cheekbones alone should have ruled her out for the role.

Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen on Broadway in The Boy from Oz. Peter Allen was probably sexy in a sort of trashy way but he was never the beauty that Jackman was.

Mariel Hemingway in Star 80. Nope. Just nope.

[quote]I’ve never found Leonardo DiCaprio attractive and could never buy Claire Danes passing up gorgeous Paul Rudd to be with Leo in Romeo and Juliet.

LOL! I felt the same way and I was 16. Then again, I was a Paul Rudd lover since CLUELESS and went to see THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION opening day n the spring of '98 when TITANIC was still in the Top 5!

Helen Lawson in "I'll Cry When It's Raining!" She was supposed to be an unmarried twenty-year old country girl. Instead we got a blowsy drunk forty-going-on fifty bottle blonde.

Pattison was too ugly for Edward in Twilight. Sometimes he looks okay, but he has such a flat face- makes him unattractive.

Pattinson doesn't do anything for me, but they got the casting right in terms of what teenage girls & young women wanted -- they became obsessed with him.

Anna Paquin has a trashy allure to her , so i think she was believable as a Louisiana waitress

They would've become obsessesed with anyone who played Edward in twilight.

Pattinson really is a prime example of the magic of cinematografy: he can look very handsome from certain angles, but his face is basically a Picasso painting.

Pattinson is up for this role in the next Merry Melodies cartoon.

Tom Cruise is too ugly for all his roles. He looks like a mole person

Cillian Murphy as an astronaut/physicist in Sunshine. They could've at least nerded him up a little (similar to his Scarecrow character in Batman Begins), but they made him a hot prettyboy rocker type.

Robert Pattinson is such a weird case. He really does look beautiful depending on the angle and lighting, but he has a strange, flat nose that looks like he's just been hit in the face with a frying pan. With a different nose, he'd probably be devastatingly handsome.

{quote] Vince Neil was never really good looking.

um?? he was a legit princess tho?? have u seen the cheekbones

R136 Nikki wasn't homely start to finish. He's always had an ugly soul but he had a phase of physical prettiness in his 30s.

He would have been considered cuter as a women in the 1920s or 30s, though. Vince looked more the andro-boyish beauty ideal of the time.

Tom Sturridge, Daniel Radcliffe, James Franco, and Ron Livingston were ALL too pretty to play the young Allen Ginsberg.

[quote][R138] Jane Eyre was English and Charlotte is half English on her mothers side. She can speak in a perfect British accent.

Yes, I know Gainsbourg's background. I didn't think her accent was perfect but that's not what I mean. Her Europeaness is in her look and her vibe, and she wasn't quite able to overcome it in her performance, but I still liked what she did.

R162, you're overthinking it. The point was simply that Gia's ethnicity was hard to pin down - was she Italian, Latina, what? - and it was an important part of her appeal, along with her androgyny. I don't know who else could have played her (I do know the English actress Georgina Cates was in the running before Angelina) but Angelina doesn't really have either of those qualities.

R197, I said somewhere here at the time that the reason Margot Robbie was wrong for Tonya was because if Tonya had looked like Margot, her whole life would have been different. The scandal was predicated on the fact that Nancy Kerrigan was this gorgeous all-American girl who'd had it all handed to her, and Tonya was this ratchet trailer trash chick with fried hair whose sole asset was her talent. Tonya's lack of beauty and lack of charisma in comparison was key to everything. Same with Robbie's casting as Elizabeth I - if Elizabeth had been truly beautiful instead of just passably striking at best, a lot of things about her life would have been different.

I haven't read this entire thread, but will add AnnE Hathaway in "The Devil Wears Prada". I think she's a fine actress, but there's just no way Hathaway goes from frumpy to stylish. It's not her fault - she is simply too beautiful. Yea they can dress her down, do something with her hair so it gets styled later, but she's just too beautiful. This was the same situation for AnnE in the first Princess Diaries movie. She's good at comedy, can be goofy and awkward. But frizzy hair is just that and she's still pretty. By the end of that film she's luminous.

It was mentioned upthread, I felt the same way about Michele Pfeiffer in Frankie & Johnnie. Put her on screen without make-up, don't style her hair and guess what? That lovely face, beautiful body just shine through. Here's the thing about the role of Frankie - it was written for Kathy Bates. Now I can definitely see her as a waitress in a diner, with a crappy and abusive relationship under her belt; but not Michele.

It's probably been said (thread's too long to check,) but Geena Davis in the Accidental Tourist. Her acting was fine but the character was supposed to be completely unattractive, not just a quirky weirdo. Geena had been a successful model before trying her hand at acting, she was far too beautiful for the part.

I am probably the only one this bothered but Corin Nemic as Harold in The Stand miniseries. Harold was supposed to be a fat, pimply ogre with greasy hair.

R213, it drove me nuts how they kept referring to Hathaway’s character as “fat” when even in her frumpy clothes she looked rail thin. I know it was a fashion world where anorexia is the norm but Emily Blunt looked fatter than Hathaway.

100% agree, r215.

Bette in everything except that one where she was supposed to be ugly. She nailed that one.

R215/R217 why did that bother you?

[quote] there's just no way Hathaway goes from frumpy to stylish. It's not her fault - she is simply too beautiful.

R213 = AnnE

I don't understand why that's so funny. Anne Hathaway is a beautiful woman. My male friends and brothers think very highly of her. I guess only on DL would she be considered ugly or plain.

I mentioned this earlier in this thread. Scott Lowell as Ted Schmidt in Queer As Folk. He was supposed to be kinda old and NOT attractive. He was not stunning but Scott Lowell was cute enough looking. It was NONSENSE to present his character as SO unappealing and have guys CONSTANTLY reject him. If he weighed 300 pounds and 5ft 4in that would be a realistically physically unattractive character.

Scott Lowell is only attractive on DL.

R222- She is a bit cross eyed. She is annoying in general. NYT liked The Devil Wears Prada-especially Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt's performances. They did NOT like Anne Hathaway's performance AT ALL.

r220 helps bring to mind another entry for this thread...

I agree that in the real world Ted Schmidt wouldn't have a problem hooking up.

R185-I called Watson plain, not ugly. She's average. If she was checking you out at a Walgreens, you wouldn't look twice.

R222-Anne Hathaway has a large nose and horse teeth. She's by no means ugly, but beautiful? Not quite.

R229 do you realize it's subjective? There's no wrong/right answer. But the fact is that many people consider her beautiful.

[quote]Interview with Olivia Hussey and she basically said that she thought she blew her audition for Juliet and still thinks that she did in a way, but the director cast her from among all the gorgeous girls who auditioned specifically because she was a temperamental, histrionic teenager.

That is interesting R115 . I watched this a couple of years ago, and during her ---- spoiler alert ---- death scene, thinking that she really came across as a true teen age girl with a superficial crush that she would have gotten over with in a few weeks. In a way, it made it more tragic, because they did not die for some everlasting true love, but teenage hormones that would have run its course. I thought Olivia's Juliet came off as superficial, and it worked with that interpretation.

I thought Whiting's Romeo might have had a bit more depth. I remember thinking he was a decent actor and combining that with his looks wondering why he did not have a bigger career.

I read somewhere they were going to cast someone else as Juliet and the actress cut her hair after her audition, and then lost the part.

Leonard Whiting was so beautiful as Romeo. No complaints about casting there.

r158 what's with this site's fascination with Sharon Tate? She looked good, in a 60's blonde type of way, but some of you act like she was Helen of Troy. Her gruesome death must have put her on some weird DL pedestal. If she was alive today, as a 30-something actress, no one would waste their time calling her more beautiful then Margaret Robbie.

In the play, Juliet is only 13. The nurse says a couple times "She's not quite fourteen." Romeo isn't much older.

While the 1968 version might have done an excellent job casting the teenage lovers, the 1936 version went a different route.

^ Great example of actors who were waaaaay too old for their roles

R236- Like Stockard Channing as Rizzo in GREASE.

R237 Like the entire cast of Grease.

R238- What's bizarre is that in real life in 1959 when Grease is set-Stockard Channing was already in high school!

r222 I love Anne Hathaway's look. She may not be considered gorgeous, but her face is interesting. She is always the one my eyes are drawn towards

Back on Topic: Adam Brody as Seth Cohen on The O.C. He was perfect for the role, but the backstory of him as some loser with zero friends was suspect at best. I mean, the kid was a walking model. You mean to tell me that not a single girl or gay guy wanted to talk to that (see bottom left). That's not the look a friendless geek. Ryan, (bottom right) was the fugly one in the group.

R239 LOL! Yeah, Stockard (b. February 1944) was 15/16 during the 1959-1960 school year depicted in GREASE.

All these DL Queens calling people UGLY and FUGLY who are merely average looking.

Daniel Bruhl in The Countess (which is a great film otherwise). With all the close-ups of his sleeping face and the way they talked about his flawless beauty, the role of Erzsebet's young lover would have called for an actor who's in the league of a young Ian Somerhalder, Jude Law or Henry Cavill. I like Daniel, but he just looks like your average German boy next door. And he wasn't even in particularly great shape in that movie. Pale and sort of skinny fat. He could at least have worked out a bit.

I have to disagree about Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio being miscast in Romeo + Juliet. I still remember seeing Claire in that angel costume and being blown away by her beauty. As for Leo... in a few scenes of that movie he looked almost pre-pubescent and a bit too girlish. But given the right lighting and angle he was out of this world. I just wish they hadn't bleached his hair. The light blonde hair made him look even more baby-faced, and his natural dark blonde shade compliments his skin tone beautifully (see Marvin's Room where he looks more mature than in Romeo+Juliet, although it was filmed a few months earlier). How anyone could find Paul Rudd hotter than 90s Leo is beyond me. Rudd is handsome, but in a very generic, uninteresting All-American kind of way.

John Malkovich has a striking face imo, but there's something creepy about him, especially when he smiles.

Fred Astaire when he was older, in all those movies where actresses much younger than himself fell for him

R244-Here, here on Fred Astaire. Now Gene Kelly-that was believable.

I agree, R233. I feel almost bad for saying this, but Sharon Tate was just a generic blonde imo.

R195 it’s truly shocking the level to which Paul Mercurio lost his looks. Mind-boggling.

When did Paul Mercurio turn into Bob Hoskins?

Probably an obscure one but John C. Reilly in The Hours. In the book, the husband character is implied to be younger and better looking than his wife, the Julianne Moore character, and consequently something of a catch. The wife’s unhappiness is slowly drawn out. In the film it was all too easy to understand why Moore would leave him. Just lazy casting IMO. The contrast say with “Carol” where a still hot Kyle Chandler is well-cast as Carol’s husband; the point is that she is gay, not that her husband is unattractive.

I remember my friend and I binge watching The O.C. a few years after it was off the air and thinking the same thing about Adam Brody. He was hot as hell. I guess it was more of a personality thing as to why he didn't have any friends until Ryan came along. He got the quirky side down and it's probably the best he's ever been, acting wise, so I'm not complaining.

I like Maura Tierney a lot, but having Noah Wyle and Goran Visnjic fight over her in ER was a bit ridiculous.

Speaking of John C. Reilly, remember when he was cast as Stanley in that production of A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Natasha Richardson? Who wouldn't believe beautiful Natasha would be gobsmacked by a sexy, manly hunk like John C. Reilly. What were people smoking when they thought that one up?

R252 yikes, I did not recall this, but have googled to see the mostly poor reviews pointing out the entirety unsurprising complete lack of chemistry between them and sense of sexual threat etc that Stanley is meant to have. Natasha seems to have struggled to convey desire, yeah well even for such a talented actress, when you’ve got Liam Neeson at home it probably makes it all the more difficult to seem “hot” for Reilly.

Because Reilly is a reasonably good actor (I’m not bowled over by him ), he gets cast in roles that he isn’t really a fit for. I have just thought of another egregious miscasting of him which was in We Need to Talk about Kevin. The mother character there was also supposed to have a good-looking husband if I recall correctly, perhaps better-looking than her. It’s relevant for the dynamics of their marriage but tell you what, fuck it, just cast John C. Reilly.

R242 from what I've seen on this thread, there's actually not a whole lot of that (ordinary-looking actors being called ugly and fugly).

Most of the assessments here are pretty fair, with posters saying that a certain actor just wasn't as pretty as the role called for. Contribute or shut up, you hysterical Mary.

R253 there should be a separate DL thread about most ridiculous child/parent movie castings. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" would be at the top. John C. Reilly and Tilda producing a kid that looks like Ezra Miller? What were the casting directors smoking?

R233 my point was that Margot is no Sharon in the beauty dept. Though I do think Margot is just lovely. I was pointing out my theory that Tarantino knew he could never replicate Sharon on film and that's why she has (according to advance info after Cannes) relatively few lines in the movie. Which some SJWs apparently had a problem with after seeing OUATIH

John C. Reilly? As Stanley in Streetcar? What the fuck? That goes beyond miscasting. That's everything the character isn't. Reilly isn't just wrong physically, but he never seems like a brute to me at all. He's more like a cuddly teddy bear. I could see him being a brilliant Mitch. Did he actually get cast as Mitch and they somehow accidentally called him and told him he was cast as Stanley and were too embarrassed to correct their mistake?

R255 gives himself away as a right-wing asshole with the "SJWs" comments

R257 go back and do the research on what happened. And fuck you

[quote]How anyone could find Paul Rudd hotter than 90s Leo is beyond me.

[quote]Leo... in a few scenes of that movie he looked almost pre-pubescent and a bit too girlish.

And there’s your answer, r243. I was mid-20s when Romeo and Juliet came out. Not interested in pre-pubescent, girlish boys then or now. Paul Rudd was gorgeous in the 90s and still incredibly handsome now. Leo is all yours. I didn’t say he or Claire Danes were miscast just that I didn’t see the attraction but that’s just my personal taste.

Woody Allen in almost anything, always has gorgeous, younger women doting on him in his films.

How realistic is that?

Perv.

One that always struck me was Jean Arthur in Shane. Although it's never directly said, it's implied that Shane is attracted to the married woman, and even her husband is aware of that fact. Let's be real: Alan Ladd was at his absolute peak in this movie (no wonder Sal Mineo had his photo hanging in his locker in Rebel Without A Cause!). Jean Arthur, while attractive a decade earlier, was totally out of her league with the gorgeous Ladd.

Jean Arthur and Alan Ladd had good chemistry in Shane though. Plus, while she was not a stunning beauty -she represented a normal life - a normal wife in a normal home - that he could not have.

Joel Grey was too ugly to play George M. Cohan in George M!

R251 - Luka had a thing for charge nurses.

R254- Someone called John Forsyth ugly on Dynasty. More BIPOLAR DL QUEENS. He was certainly attractive when he was younger and not bad looking on the show.

Sandra Oh in Killing Eve. Too ugly for the supposedly desirable Eve.

All the male actors on Seinfeld: not good-looking enough for the women they dated. Same for the actor on King of Queens who was married to Leah Remini’s character.

That CRAPPY show on Netflix-Womens Guide To Divorce- The main character she has all these really good looking guys lusting after her and she's just average looking. The show is a woman's fantasy.

According to Jim - Jim Belishi and Courtney Thirne Smith would never happen.

Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby. A little too plain for Daisy.

r270 I thought she was the best very best on-screen Daisey, but I know it's an unpopular opinion. But I love the actress so I am very biased.

Regarding "Jane Eyre"... Jane shouldn't be ugly! Yes, in the book she constantly tells us she's plain, but young women have never been good at judging their own looks. Not then, now now. Rochester is attracted to her at first sight and keeps comparing her an elf or fairy, so although her looks weren't fashionable for her era, she should not be played by a butt-ugly actress.

Mia Wachikowska looked just about right in the version made a few years ago... short, skinny, sort of pretty, but as unglamorous as can be. It's a pity that her Rochester was miscast, and that the script didnt let Jane's personality shine the way it did in the book.

R270 Carey Mulligan looks like an animated female dog in GOOF TROOP.

It's impossible to play Daisy Buchanan on screen. The camera sees through that bitch long before the characters do, so "The Great Gatsby" can never be successfully translated to film, just because of the nature of the medium.

So neither Mia Farrow nor Carey Buchanan were posh enough or glamorous to play her, but it wasnt their fault that the films didnt work.

The only person who would have been a perfect Daisy was the young Elizabeth Taylor.

Roger Daltry was too tan and muscular for Tommy. Tommy doesn't know what day it is etc............but he tans and works out?

Same with Ryan O'Neal in What's Up Doc. He's too tan for an awkward professor.

Daisy in "Great Gatsby" is like Scarlett O'Hara in that the book describes her as not being beautiful. Scarlett is supposed to be so charming that everyone thinks she's beautiful, and Daisy is supposed to be the epitome of upper-class effortless glamour, rather than a great beauty. Which neither Carey Mulligan nor Mia Farrow had.

Of course audiences are disappointed when they're played by an actress who isnt a real stunner.

What about www.goop.com aka Gwyneth Paltrow for Daisy? r277 seemed to describe her perfectly.

R267 I think that was the premise on King of Queens that Kevin James was the physical opposite of Leah Rimini but I always thought he was one hot furry bear.

R251 Maura bagged Goran in real life, so I don’t think it was out of the realm of possibility there

R259 interesting comment. I’ve known more than a couple of closet-case women who had a longstanding obsession with Leo in TITANIC, I suspect as he resembled a dreamy softbutch lesbian. He was also an ideal crush object for tween/young teen girls for those familiar unthreatening looks.

[Quote] Annette O'Toole was so stunning. Kinski isn't unattractive, but O'Toole was so much more alluring.

But O'Toole wasn't a were-cat.

[Quote] Adam Brody as Seth Cohen on The O.C. He was perfect for the role, but the backstory of him as some loser with zero friends was suspect at best. I mean, the kid was a walking model. You mean to tell me that not a single girl or gay guy wanted to talk to that (see bottom left). That's not the look a friendless geek. Ryan, (bottom right) was the fugly one in the group.

I thought Adam was cuter than Ben too. But most nerdy/geeky type characters are. The downside is they're usually selfish assholes.

[Quote] it’s truly shocking the level to which Paul Mercurio lost his looks. Mind-boggling.

He was so hot in Exit To Eden.

R277 Where do you find Daisy Buchanan described as “not beautiful” in The Great Gatsby? This is her introduction:

“Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: . . . a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”

It doesn’t describe her physical features at length, but at least through the eyes of Nick the narrator, she is described as magnetic and alluring to men.

Gary Cooper in High Noon. Looked like Grace Kelly’s grandfather.

R266 yes to Sandra Oh, a great answer. I think we all aren’t supposed to notice she’s not attractive. In Grey’s Anatomy she also seemed to be playing a character who was meant to be better-looking than she is.

Shonda Rhimes is very fond of casting fug or plain women as irresistible man-magnets. Please see Chandra Wilson as the object of Daniel Sunjata's lust on Grey's.

Another good point R286, I assume it’s to keep the Fraus happy. I also remember when Chandra Wilson had Jason George pursuing her on that show, it was fairly embarrassing.

I didn't find Tucker and Bailey too farfetched.

Prettyboy, preening, perfect-smile Christian Slater as dirty outlaw troll Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh in YOUNG GUNS II.

The real ADR was short, dark, weatherbeaten and yokel-homely as could be with a huge moustache and berry-brown skin - a far cry from pale, androgynous elfin Slater. The looks mismatch makes it hard to believe prissy Christian in this role as a grubby hardened dip-chewing torturer.

[quote]Too pretty: Chloe Grace Moretz

Who's OP, Chloe's mom?

R288 Tucker was actually OK. Chandra Jones attracting George & Sunjata was reaching.

Cumberbatch (?) and Sandra Oh shouldn't be allowed to be actors. Nobody should risk watching those faces for too long. I find both nightmare inducing.

I thought Sissy Spacek was too cute to be the bullied, ugly duckling in the original Carrie.

R286, R287, R291 Don't forget, both Sunjata and George were pursuing Bailey at the same time! As if!

This is Chandra and her real-life husband.

I don’t mind Paquin as Sookie in True Blood (casting-wise). That place is meant to be a real HICK town. Grimy and ugly. You look at some of the minor characters who frequent the bar and they are overweight, missing teeth, have badly dyed orange boofy hair, the men are all in stained flannel. I can believe that Paquin’s peppy little blonde waitress with a hot bod and a high ponytail would have turned heads.

I can understand criticisms that the supernatural characters wouldn’t have fallen head over heels for her, but the women in their worlds weren’t exactly knockouts either (Kirsten Bauer, Evan Rachel Wood, Brit Morgan).

Jane Fonda too pretty to be Lillian Hellman in Julia.

Charlotte Gainsbourg only learned English pretty late - she was in her mid-teens when she played Julie in The Cement Garden in her first English language role. Her English was so bad she needed a lot of work with a dialect coach. It's much better these days and she seems to have embraced her half-Britishness but her upbringing was entirely French.

Clark Gable looked like Marilyn Monroe's dad in The Misfits

Lena Dunham as always getting the guys.. and some very hot guys on GIRLS. I though it was ridiculous and very unrealistic.

Lena Dunham *was^^

R300 remember when Hannah bagged Patrick Wilson and there was an outcry from people? They were like, "That's too much of a stretch!" LOL

Too ugly: Gale Howard in Queer as Folk. The man always seemed average to me. I didn’t get his appeal when watching the series.

Carey Mulligan in "Far From the Madding Crowd." In the first screen version, her character was played by Julie Christie. and it was believable she would have been pursued by three different handsome men. Carey Mulligan, not so much. They were obviously just after her money.

R272 It's been several years since I've read Jane Eyre. My memory is that she is actually told to her face that she is plain.

R256 I had to chuckle when you mentioned John C. Reilly getting the role of Stanley by mistake. I thought the same thing when I saw Kiss of the Spider Woman. I imagined the director thinking of John Hurt for the role and in walks William Hurt.

Sandra Bullock playing a dowdy, sexless shut-in on The Net.

Elle Fanning in Neon Demon as a model others are jealous of? ROTFLMAO

Gale Harold was perfect for that part- it's acting, not just looks.

Clint Eastwood looked like a frail geriatric in The Bridges Of Madison County. The housewife is supposed to find it wildly erotic to be bathing under the shower head where he just washed naked minutes before.

But Gale is a bad actor

"Sandra Bullock playing a dowdy, sexless shut-in on The Net."

Or the frumpy character she played in While You Were Sleeping

Yeah, Gale Harold is not only bland-looking but he played the character with absolutely no nuance -- he was just a humorless asshole, not a charming villain you "love to hate".

R307 Elle may be plain in the face but to be fair, she's also tall (5'9"), slender, Aryan, and has that delicate, porcelain-like youthfulness that the modeling industry goes crazy for.

A lot of successful models in real life fit the above qualities without being facially pretty. Ex: Karlie Kloss

John C Reilly as Roxie's husband in Chicago.

And as Jennifer Aniston's husband in The Good Girl.

Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe!

I thought John C. Reilly was really well cast as Roxie's husband. That's exactly the kind of role he excels at. He's a lovable goof.

Killing Eve scene:

"Oh, you look stunning." what various characters say to Sandra Oh.

[quote]I thought Sissy Spacek was too cute to be the bullied, ugly duckling in the original Carrie.

Aww bless your heart! Welcome to Datalounge, Sissy!

What about daytime soap performances?

R315 but he didn't deserve the Oscar nomination!

Richard Armitage as Thorin the Dwarf King in the horrible "The Hobbit" movies. The Thorin of the book was much older, strong but white-bearded, proud and cranky. So who gets cast as a dwarf king who's written as short, chunky, aged, and prickly? Robbie Coltrane or Liam Cunningham? Patrick Stewart?

Someone tall, lean, handsome, and in his forties, that's who! And tell him to act all romantic and vulnerable, too, nothing like the character in the book!

R314 and R315 Wasn't John's character intended to be ugly? Think of his "Mr. Cellophane" number. It goes something like "You can look right through me and never know I'm there".

R321 I think he's just supposed to be nondescript.

R22, it’s been years since I read the book but I seem to recall Carrie buying some skincare items and dieting a bit which her mother had fits over.

"[R314] and [R315] Wasn't John's character [in "Chicago"] intended to be ugly?"

John C. Reilly was perfectly cast as the cuckold husband. The guy has a face like a pork pie, and was coarse and poorly spoken, he is EXACTLY the kind of guy a woman with pretensions would look down on, she'd allow him to support her but constantly think she'd married beneath herself. AND the kind of schlub that a slick lawyer like Billy would look down on, too.

Plus, he's got a decent singing voice. That was the one role in the film that was perfectly cast.

[quote]Barbra was too ugly to play a high priced call girl in Nuts.

I think most prostitutes are ugly/average. The beautiful whore with the heart of gold is a myth.

"I think most prostitutes are ugly/average"

Yeah, I've met a few, and most have ordinary or moderately attractive faces, and good figures. Some look like Aileen Woronous.

Barbra had a great figure and blonde hair back in the day. A girl who looked like her could have a lot of appeal to straight men, but that would require catering to egos other than her own.

Alain Delon in basically every movie from the 60s and the 70s. he was so incredibly handsome that i find strange that the other characters in the movie dont just stop and stare at him in disbelief.

Kenneth Branagh as Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express. With that dreadful 'accent'.

Just no.

A recent one: Tye Sheridan, the main actor in Ready Player One, is Quasimodo hideous yet it’s beautiful female lead Olivia Cooke who is afraid to reveal herself because she fears he won’t like her due to some barely noticeable facial scar/birthmark. Only straight geek boys could come up with something so ridiculous.

"Yeah, I've met a few, and most have ordinary or moderately attractive faces, and good figures. Some look like Aileen Woronous."

But her character is supposed to be a high priced call girl, not a street whore

True Blood at least acknowledged that Paquin was perhaps not attractive enough to merit so much attention. The end of one season when Skarsgaard swoops in to save her the minister yells "What do they see in you!!!!!"

(actually come to think of it they explained later on that she had fairy blood which was very sweet to vampires.)

Yeah John C Reilly was fine in Chicago and fitted the role. He doesn’t fit roles where women are meant to have good-looking husbands (sorry, John — neither would I!)

The Ready Player One one is hilarious.

R329 LOL FR Tye Sheridan is unfortunate looking. He reminds me very strongly of some other white boy, cant recall which one.

Smash was like this with Debra Messing. Messing was kind of fat during it yet gorgeous looking men were desperately in love with her.

Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner in The Aviator. Frankly, I don't know who could have played Gardner, maybe a look-alike with a modicum of acting talent would have worked, but there is nothing alluring or sexy about Beckinsale. And her face has no distinct features.

[Quote] Sandra Bullock playing a dowdy, sexless shut-in on The Net.

Plus she didn't have the body of a hacker/shut-in.

[Quote] The beautiful whore with the heart of gold is a myth.

Much like the bad boy with a heart of gold.

Hilary Swank was much too manly looking to play Brandon Teena.

The casting of John Malkovich ruined "Portrait of a Lady." One look at the reptilian Mr. Malkovich is enough. RUN, GIRL.

As far as soaps, Nina in Young and Restless was a head-scratcher. Seemed like she was dropped down from another soap.

Nina.

Tina DiJoseph on Medium was too plain and fat to have attracted hunk David Cubitt.

The way every male character on WEEDS absolutely *threw* themselves at Mary Louise Parker, you'd think she was a supermodel.

I actually think she's well cast as a suburban Californian mother type. Even the weed dealing and criminal activity wasn't unbelievable from her. MLP is quite pretty too with a big range of natural smiles. But everyone from politicians to the neighbours to the school fathers to hunky black weed dealers fighting over her?.... a bit much.

the mega bomb Blackhat, featuring Chris Hemsworth as a genius hacker.

Sarah Jessica Parker had every man after her..famous artist, politician, young men, hot Adrian and Big on SATC. Ok.. maybe one or two here, but every guy was drooling over her on that show.. laughable.

[quote]As far as soaps, Nina in Young and Restless was a head-scratcher. Seemed like she was dropped down from another soap.

I think Nina actually works better on most beautiful teen in the world super model Cricket at R339 .

Nina was supposed to be the awkward outsider, so I think her looks were fine. At least for her early story lines.

Oh God, yeah, Cricket is the prime example of a soap character who was in no way as attractive as she was written.

Amy Adams in Sharp Objects. She’s supposed to be early 30’s with Victoria’s Secret supermodel looks. I like her, but no.

R347 the character is supposed to look like a model? I knew she is meant to be younger than Adams actually is.

Camille is supposed to be beautiful which Amy is, far more than most Victoria's secret supermodels...

The character is a chain smoker, drunk and depressive, she is not supposed to be glowing

I always thought Charlize and Amy should have switched Gillian Flynn adaptations. Charlize should have done Sharp Objects and Amy should have done Dark Places.

I thought Mary Louise Parker was quite sexy in Weeds. I could understand why guys would be into her. That show's major flaw was dropping Elizabeth Perkins who was the show's MVP. Maybe Mary Louise didn't like that and had her fired.

I didn't like WEEDS once they left Agrestic, which was like the third season. (There were eight, overall.) Everything changed by then.

R286. Shows like Seinfeld and The League do the same thing. TV always pair ugly comedians with attractive women.

John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons, was too ugly for the role of a guy who is a heartbreaker, especially when they break the heart of someone who looks like Michelle Pfeiffer (although I heard they had an affair during the movie).

Compared to Colin Firth who played the same role in another movie, he looks like a toad.

R354 Michelle seemed to have a thing for ugly men. She dated Fisher Stevens in the 90s.

R335 What about Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn? Katharine was no "beauty" but she WAS pretty. Young Katharine kinda resembled Linda Evangelista. Cate is talented but ugly as sin!

Jenna Coleman as Victoria.

R357 Emily Blunt as Victoria. Any actress playing a younger version of Queen Victoria would be a great improvement. It would also be romanticized fiction. The real woman had bulging watery eyes, a weak chin, and was in complete denial. She complained that one of her sons was ugly, even though he got his looks from her.

Even with the frumpy hair and clothes, Melissa McCarthy was more attractive than the real Lee Israel, who was hideous

R339 - Nina (Tricia Cast) wasn’t thin, but she was beautiful.

SJP scored hot men in real life, so no it's not unbelievable to me.

R361 I believe JFK Jr. was her rebound after a long-term relationship with Robert Downey, Jr.

Who cares? She got to fuck John-John! Lucky bitch.

[Quote] Shows like Seinfeld and The League do the same thing.

I don't think I've ever seen The League mentioned on here but I love that show.

“According to Jim” was like the reverse Grey’s Anatomy with utterly disgusting guys having attractive women in their lives — if anything, the role of the brother character (can’t remember if brother of the husband or wife) was played by someone even more unattractive than Jim Belushi, and he scored a couple of decent women.

“King of Queens” has as its central joke that the wife is supposed to be much more attractive than the husband, but Jim & his wife were a bigger gulf of attractive than that.

R360 , Nina reminded me of Nellie Olson. Nina also seemed like she should have a side pony tail. Just my opinion.

I never watched Charmed but just in passing noticed a lot of hot guys in it paired with the plain leads. Was part of their charms to hypnotize men?

SJP was quite attractive back in the 90s. Not beautiful, but attractive, with her blonde/blue/tan coloring and hot bod, and the cheerful, sunny, uninhibited personality she brought to "girlfriend" roles. She seemed like the kind of gal you'd see real-life straight men with, not a great beauty, but someone who seemed fun to be around, in and out of bed.

Of course she lost all the sexiness and likeability during the run of "SATC", when she became more annoying and self-absorbed as the show went along.

I thought SJP had an attractiveness up through Ed Wood. After that, she was like a screaming harpy beneath dried-out tree bark.

Not fun. Not sexy.

"Sex" in the City. Sure.

It's Sex AND the City!

R367 seriously? I wouldn't describe Alyssa or Shannen as plain.

^ Seriously.

What about those who were too fat? Christina Hendricks in MAD MEN immediately springs to mind.

Speaking of Milano, when did she get implants? These things look like nuclear warheads.

Dennis Leary had hot chicks hitting on him all the time on Rescue Me. You can tell he has a really high opinion of himself.

Telltale implants in this early 90s dreck. Breasts don't flatten at all when she's (Alyssa Milano) on her back. Kind of fascinating how she looks built for porn. Though maybe she understood her acting range as well as casting directors...

[quote]Amy Adams in Sharp Objects. She’s supposed to be early 30’s with Victoria’s Secret supermodel looks. I like her, but no.

Amy Adams in a bra and thong. You make the call: hot enough to be a lingerie model?

Another Adams ass shot. Surprisingly curvy.

Gary Oldman as Beethoven. Way, way too good looking. But he was great in the part.

Oldman hotness

R371 I was gonna say, some of our gay brethren are not a good judge of female beauty nor what attracts a straight man. I remember my brother and his pals having a thing for Rose McGowan when we watched SCREAM.

[quote]In most of Barbra's early films, people are always going on about how pretty or gorgeous or sensational she is. It's like she has it written in her contract.

We once had a great thread about that exact thing, fugly girls getting called pretty by the other characters. It was titled something like "Oh Blossom, you're so pretty!"

R377 and R 378–nope.

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins.

Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat.

R373 - Christina Hendricks slowly gained weight over the course of Mad Men. It actually worked for her character.

Adam Devine having a chance with Alexandra Daddario or Shelley Hennig in When We First Met.

R380 Young Beethoven wasn't that bad-looking either (but he did age like shit).

Christina Hendricks slowly gained weight over the course of Mad Men. It actually worked for her character.

Not so slowly. And she could be described as 'curvy' when the show began -- and then it worked -- but by the time it ended she was way too big.

No, Hendricks' weight totally worked for her character. Full figures really were in during the years of the early show, and you could tell from her air of sensuality and self-confidence that she knew it. It was kind of startling to see this big gal saunter through the office knowing that all the skinny bitches envied her curves, but it was also totally believable!

It was also totally believable that she'd get stout as she got older, as real people do. It's also believable that she wouldn't lose any of her sexual aura as she aged and filled out, and it's also believable that she got fewer takers as she got older and fashions in figures changed. Everything about her weight on the show was believable.

R387 I'm not sure about that one. I've always found Adam Devine to be really cute. He has an issue with his weight, but when he's not all porked up, he's pretty adorable. Heck, he's pretty adorable even when he is a little on the chubbier side.

Every man who played a love interest of Lena Dunham on "Girls" was much too good looking.

R385 too pretty or too ugly?

Adam Levine is average looking, but he annoys me like no other. I hated those credit card commercials he did a few years back. They came on like every half hour. He's someone who can go away forever and I'd be happy.

*Devine, not Levine.

Doesn't help that Levine's a dick.

Andy Devine?

Gerard Butler in Phantom of the Opera. The character has always been depicted as horribly disfigured, yet Gerard looked as though he had nothing more than an eczema outbreak.

Scarlett Johansson was too pretty to play Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman). King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) favored Anne but also liked Mary, who supposedly bore him child(ren).

Kate McKinnon is too pretty to impersonate cryptkeeper Kellyanne Conway on SNL.

r36, she didn't fall for him initially. She was into the hot blond guy. The point was they were friends and then that turned to love.

I believed it because it wasn't about attraction it was about soul mates.

r55, I disagree. The Queen was quite fabulous.

You better not say nothing bad about the Queen of England.

Princess Margaret did get a lot of impressive dick.

Not ugly of course, but Naomi Watts as Princess Diana, Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly, and Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, none pretty enough

R303 Carey MUlligan also in Gatsby. She’s a cute little pixie, not a woman men obsess over.

"Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" would have been a marvelously cool sci-fi movie, if the two leads hadn't been monumentally miscast. Based on the "Valerian and Laureline" comics, the who heroes were supposed to be two of the baddest badasses in the galaxy, and they were inexplicably played by two skinny, homely dweebs.

Neither Cara DelViegne nor Dane Dehaan are particularly good-looking, and they both look spindly and frail. Cara D. is blown off the screen by both Rhianna and some CGI alien babes, all of whom outshine her in beauty, charisma, and acting talent. And DeHaan looks like the most junior IT guy at your job.

^ While I liked Cara in her role, I agree with you about Dane. His character was supposed to be a lady-killer, and Dane presented as anything but. He kept taking me right out of the movie and he was in almost every scene!

R407, I saw the movie in the theater, and the entire audience laughed out loud at the scene where Cara D. punches out a grown male soldier in the last act.

"VatCoaTP" has some of the most inexplicable bad casting I've ever seen. Those two dweebs were not only totally wrong for the role, they weren't box-office attractions, and, well, the odds are against their both fucking the director. Not that a movie director couldn't do better, either way.

[quote]No, Hendricks' weight totally worked for her character.

When it began, maybe. Definitely not as she went above 180 lbs.

[quote]Full figures really were in during the years of the early show

Marilyn Monroe figures, not Shelley Winters figures.

[quote]you could tell from her air of sensuality and self-confidence that she knew it. It was kind of startling to see this big gal saunter through the office knowing that all the skinny bitches envied her curves, but it was also totally believable!

No, Fat Pride is a modern thing. Back then a woman of her size would've felt the thing to lose some weight.

[quote]It was also totally believable that she'd get stout as she got older, as real people do. It's also believable that she wouldn't lose any of her sexual aura as she aged and filled out, and it's also believable that she got fewer takers as she got older and fashions in figures changed. Everything about her weight on the show was believable.

The show kept believing her to be sexy though. If they accepted she wasn't it would've been different, which is what this thread is all about.

How big did she get? Up to like 220?

185 lbs - 190 lbs, R410.

[quote]Amy Adams in Sharp Objects. She’s supposed to be early 30’s with Victoria’s Secret supermodel looks. I like her, but no.

I thought Charlize Theron should have played the lead in Sharp Objects and Adams would have been better off playing the lead in Dark Places. Charlize is a weirdo and she would have enjoyed playing the scarred freak of Sharp Objects. Charlize would have probably demanded a scene in which Camille wears a dress or shirt that reveals all the arm scars to the morons of Wind Gap.

R398 LOL! Yeah, his mask came off (Ha!) as more of a fashion accessory than something with which to hide his disfigurement.

R404 I agree about the other, too, but Watts is way prettier than Diana ever was!

And while I'm at it R402 I gotta side with R55. In fact, most people who have portrayed the royals have been better looking.

All through the movie GYPSY, Roz Russell is playing a woman who is dead broke and scrambling to hold things together.

Roz does so perfectly coiffed, with sensational make-up and eyelashes, and swathed in smart clothing by Orry-Kelly. And fab jewelry, always. When they are at the lowest point at the end of the first act, she is even wearing monkey fur trim on her stylish coat.

No one living in poverty ever looked so fucking good.

R415 especially during the Depression!

For the upcoming Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Emile Hirsch is a bit ugly as Jay Sebring. Hirsch should have been cast as Manson instead.

R417 Charles Manson?

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but Barry Keoghan, while an amazing actor, was just too ugly in American Animals especially since the actual guy he played was featured in the film and was quite handsome.

"All through the movie GYPSY, Roz Russell is playing a woman who is dead broke and scrambling to hold things together. Roz does so perfectly coiffed, with sensational make-up and eyelashes, and swathed in smart clothing by Orry-Kelly. And fab jewelry, always."

Actually, Rose Hovik and her daughters did what most show biz people did in those days, they'd "keep up a front" even if they had to spend their last dollar on silk stockings instead of food. Actors and vaudeville performers went to great lengths to look good in public and in dealing with management, they thought if they looked successful they'd be treated like stars, and if they looked broke then they'd get the bum's rush. Looking rich, looking like a big star, was a survival tactic.

Gypsy Rose Lee wrote about keeping up a front and many other interesting things in her autobiographical book "Gypsy", which the musical is based on. And which FYI is a heck of a good read.

Here's Barry Keoghan with the guy he portrayed in American Animals. Keoghan doesn't even look Caucasian in this pic.

Barry Keoghan can be cute as he was in Dunkirk.

I think Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook and Adam Feuerstein in In Her Shoes were both too handsome for their character, who are meant to be a bit schlubby.

R415, that always bothered me. I also hated her finale outfit for "Rose's Turn". How is someone supposed to do a mock striptease dressed like Cruella DeVille with that ridiculous hat and pumps?

I like my Roses with a bit more grit. Coiffed, but but barely scraping by.

R421 they should've used the guy who played Pyp in Game of Thrones. He looks more like the real guy

Here

I think Barry Keoghan is a brilliant actor. He was just all wrong for that film.

Jennifer Lawrence

Totally miscast in The Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. She was just too young, too pretty for that role. This role was meant for an older, more experienced actress. She won the awards because she was the hot new young thing then.

If an audition was held today and she was still 21 years old, she wouldn't be getting those roles. That was a total slap in the face to older actresses.

R428 JLaw was good in the role but yeah....she just didn't look right next to BCoop.

Dane Dehaan is so attractive to me when his hair is right... a lot of people are actually into the whole victorian consumptive chic thing he has going on.

I prefer that vibe more than the conventional musclebound caveman look of hemsworth and tatum, they have good bodies but neanderthal faces. Give me delicate featured faces anyday...

Do many female nuclear scientists look like Denise Richards?

R431 and are any of them named Christmas Jones??

Kim Stanley as a Marilyn Monroe-esque bombshell in THE GODDESS.

That's one of the best examples, R4333.

*R433

R420, whenever someone starts their statement with, "Actually,...," there's the cue that everything to follow has little to do with the topic at hand and everything to do with the declarant's narcissism. No one needs you to come here to set people straight. You're not good at it.

Any performer would make the best presentation at an audition or when meeting with someone in management. Not when they are living in a tent in the desert. Equally absuird is the red silk Chinese shirt waist dress and accessories Russell wears, just to go to yet another Chinese restaurant.

Even the cloth coat she makes from stolen hotel blankets is ridiculous in its excessive design. This, too, has a fur collar. It's just Hollywood excess, making sure a star looks like a star, regardless of the role she is playing.

R428, totally agree and Jennifer Lawrence was also too young for her role in Joy. In all three films it was utterly grating to see a woman her age play characters meant to be at least in their mid-thirties. We could make another thread with actors cast far too young for their roles and JLaw would be top of the list.

R136 they did the best they could with Vince. It’s a hard part to cast because the real Vince was so petite and so feminine of face but so masculine in demeanour, plus he has a speaking voice like a Jim Henson muppet but a singing voice like a cat in heat. There’s a lot of conflicting elements.

Daniel Webber was a strong choice because he can sing in a Vince-like way and has all the moves down to an uncanny level, plus his lithe little body is a good facsimile. These character adds made it easier to overlook his face & accent which are admittedly nothing close to actual Vince.

R437, Barbra Streisand as a Dolly Levi in her 20's would be up there. Beautifully sung, but she's more age appropriate for that role now than she was in the 60's.

LiLo nowhere near beautiful enough to play Elizabeth Taylor.

I think when you compare leading actors in biopics to their real life counterparts the actor is almost always going to be better looking. Most people in real life are not great beauties; leading actors generally are, which is why in fact they are leading actors.

Claire Foy and Vanessa Kirby are indeed much prettier than the real Elizabeth and Margaret were 1947-1963; but keep in mind, compared to other royals, Elizabeth was considered very pretty when she was was made queen, and Margaret was considered beautiful. the biggest diuscrepancy for me in appearance was Vanessa Kirby was quite tall and in real life Margaret was so short (under 5'0") that her nickname among the actors and writers she favored was "the royal dwarf." But I will say also that both actresses so fully inhabited their roles that they both made me forget their physical differences from the real women.

Dataloungers seems to always want exact physical replicas to play famous people; yet how often does that happen? Maybe with Ben Kingsley in Gandhi (after he had been well starved) and Joan Allen in Nixon. That's about the only times it worked. I would much rather the person can impersonate the real person;s manner and attitude: Anthony Hopkins looks nothing like Richard Nixon (they didn't even use a fake nose), yet he was able to pretty much morph so fully into who Nixon was we believed him as Nixon.

I actually think, though, that Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham-Carter will be more physically similar to Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret 1964-1986 in the next two seasons of The Crown. For one thing, both women are short, like the real Elizabeth and Margaret; for another, Colman was once a pretty(-ish) woman, and Bonham-Carter was once a genuine beauty; but they have both coarsened with age, and Bonham-Carter (like Margaret) is a heavy smoker.

R442 Why didn't they have them both wear blue contacts? And Margaret was considered a great beauty. Helena is too ugly to play her. Are you sure that Colman is short? She looks tall in everything I've seen her in.

R443 where did you see her?

R438

R441, I know she's not 'famous' in the United States, but Ruth Ellis - the last woman hanged in the UK - was famous enough in the UK to have a film made about her. In 1950's hair and make up, Miranda Richardson looked about as much like her as another person could.

And, of course, there is Madonna and Eva Peron. Madonna not only looked like Eva Peron, she sang it like her, too. ; )

[quote]And, of course, there is Madonna and Eva Peron. Madonna not only looked like Eva Peron, she sang it like her, too. ; )

It was eerie how they had similar lives, too:

- both lost a parent at age 5/6

- both moved to the big city as a teenager to make it big

- both were original brunettes who became bottle-blondes

- both posed for erotic photos that later came to haunt them

- both used sex to advance/sustain their career and hit it big on the radio

- both attempted film careers but sucked at acting.

- both drew thousands whenever they performed

Also, Eva was often referred to as "Madonna."

[quote] LiLo nowhere near beautiful enough to play Elizabeth Taylor.

That reminds me of Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Audrey Hepburn.

R448 I played her, too, in the same film!

R444 In various things. Here she is at the Golden Globes with her recent costars. They all look about the same size and none of them is known for being short.

All of these are very good answers.

I will add that Jennifer Aniston and Jordan Brewster are never pretty enough for any leading role they may get. Neither are great actresses, so you have to assume they get their leading lady/love interest roles based on looks, and they are actually not that attractive. Yes, I have seen both in person.

I thought Jennifer Aniston was very sexy and funny as hell in Horrible Bosses.

R447 Creepy! If Madonna’s body disappears for two decades after she’s dead it will be more than coincidence.

[quote] And Margaret was considered a great beauty. Helena is too ugly to play her.

Margaret was considered a great beauty before her marriage in 1963. She was considered to have faded considerably by the time span of this upcoming season (1964-1976).

And Helena was considered a great beauty in her youth too.

Helena as a beautiful young woman.

They're not lookalikes by any means, but in terms of attractiveness, I think they're pretty evenly matched (especially when you consider Margaret here is in a posed professional portrait).

Beautiful women, but both have seen better days.

I remember when Helena Bonham Carter played Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian widow in some TV movie.

Queen Elizabeth II: 5' 4"

Claire Foy: nearly 5' 4" (just a little under)

Olivia Colman: 5' 7"

Princess Margaret: 5'1"

Vanessa Kirby: 5' 7"

Helena Bonham Carter: 5' 2"

R458 Thank you. Olivia is definitely not short. 5'7" is tall for a woman. The average American woman is only 5'4".

She's not short, but the difference between Colman and the queen is only three inches. The difference between Princess Margaret and Vanessa Kirby was six inches, which is quite a bit. But Vanessa Kirby was still extraordinary as Princess Margaret.

R455 and R456 Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder because I never considered Helena a beauty. She's definitely elegant, especially since she usually plays refined and/or aristocratic characters. But I always thought there was something weird-looking about her face. She's got a broad face. She kinda reminds me of some type of bird, like an owl maybe. lol

[Quote] I will add that Jennifer Aniston and Jordan Brewster are never pretty enough for any leading role they may get.

Every time I went to see the next F&F movie, I'd always be distracted by how skinny she looked whenever she was onscreen. And in one of them her character was supposed to be pregnant. But I do love the movie D.E.B.S

Lily Collins would be a great Audrey Hepburn!

Ralph Fiennes in Schindlers List as Amon Goethe was way too hot—even with a belly. The real guy was obese and repulsive. Ralph was a very handsome man with a bit of a gut. I will admit that he was outstanding in the role, however.

Ralph Fiennes was also too hot in Red Dragon. Even with that cleft lip scar, I couldn't stop thinking about how sexy he was.

[R465] Was the character really supposed to be ugly or just convinced that he was ugly? He was an abuse victim.

Yeah, fuck his bitch of a grandma. Making him think his name was cunt face and threatening to cut off his dick.

I hated her when I read that book.

Any Chris Evans film.

R2 - Thank you for mentioning the terrible miscasting of McKee in the remake! Whoever did the casting never read the book, in which Irene is described as being voluptuous, tall, and with dark brown eyes and golden hair, got the colouring totally reversed and cast a dark haired woman with blue eyes, which is how the second wife, Annette, is described. The team got it completely and totally wrong. (Among other massacres of Galsworthy's ironic and beautifully observed magnum opus they carried out.)

Frank Langella in "Dracula" (the film). Way too handsome to be creepy. Gary Oldman carried it off better.

I was almost going to bring up Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story" but she did such a wonderful job that her obvious beauty under the nun's habit was muted.

R428 - She was also absurd as the ballet dancer in "Red Sparrows" - she's a big hefty girl and the moment you saw the real dancer you could tell the difference. JLaw looks as much like a highly trained Russian ballerina as Donald Trump looks like an Oxford don.

[quote] I was almost going to bring up Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story" but she did such a wonderful job that her obvious beauty under the nun's habit was muted.

The nun who inspired that book was a dyke in real life and looked very much like one.

R472 - I read the book, which I thought very well written, and suspected the real subject might be a lesbian when I read her real history, but the novel played that down. That's the first photo I've ever seen of her. Thanks.

R468 how do you mean? That he's too pretty for his roles?

Natalie Portman made Anne Frank Hollywood glamorous, which I think Anne would have loved.

I think Ewan McGregor wa s too bland lookin g as Catcher Block in that movie he made with Renee Zellweger.

No actress alive today can play Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. They're in a class by itself.

Claire Danes in Romeo and Juliet opposite Leo. It was distracting because Leo was so much prettier than her and it was hard to imagine he was wildly attracted her.

[Quote] She was also absurd as the ballet dancer in "Red Sparrows" - she's a big hefty girl and the moment you saw the real dancer you could tell the difference.

Hefty???

JLaw isn’t hefty by any means, but it’s fairly unusual to actually see a woman even on the skinny side of normal, like her, in film unless her weight is a plot point. Admittedly, ballerinas tend to be exceptionally slim so another role that perhaps wasn’t for her.

J. Law is far from "hefty" - maybe she wasn't scrawny enough to be a ballerina, but she's far from overweight.

Audrey Hepburn was too exquisite looking to be a Cockney flower seller in My Fair Lady. She was also about a decade too old, but that's a different issue.

I always thought it sad that the great Kathy Bates created the role of Frankie in "Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune" when it debuted off-Broadway, but Michelle Pfeiffer got the role when it was filmed. One of them was too pretty or too ugly for the role. Has to be.

Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Audrey H.

Donnie Wahlberg in "The Sixth Sense". He played a murderous mental patient... who somehow had a perfectly buff, tanned, shaved gym-queen body.

Real mental patients don't look like that! The only ones who have any interest in their bodies are the anorexics! The rest are pasty and doughy, if the antipsychotics haven't made them downright fat.

[Quote] Donnie Wahlberg in "The Sixth Sense". He played a murderous mental patient... who somehow had a perfectly buff, tanned, shaved gym-queen body.

That was Donnie?? And speaking of the Wahlbergs, did anyone buy Marky Mark as an astronaut in Planet Of The Apes?

I don’t really buy Marky Mark as any character, but he does keep being cast in things.

[quote]He played a murderous mental patient... who somehow had a perfectly buff, tanned, shaved gym-queen body.

I remember when that movie came out and Donnie got a lot of talk due to his one opening scene. Most found his appearance shocking. I remember the term "skeletal" being thrown around.

Adam Driver as Ben Solo/Kylo Ren - Han Solo classic good looks

Is Dakota Johnson supposed to be hot? Because she isn't.

I thought Donnie was great in The Sixth Sense and he didn't look muscle-y to me. He looked like he'd lost a lot of weight for the role.

Totally, he was skinny and sickly looking. He freaked me out when we first saw him in that bathroom.

Anna Paquin, miscast as Sookie in True Blood where a gorgeous Skarsgard and all these other men find her utterly desirable.

Scarlett Johannson could play Marilyn Monroe. Don't know about the voice, though.

Scarlett has been looking a little haggard lately.

I want Francesca Annis to play Margaret in Season 5 (when I assume she dies) on The Crown. She’s still a beautiful lady but the make-up department could do a good job to make her look haggard for Margaret’s final years.

Adrien Brody in King Kong. That role totally called for someone with old-school good looks. I don't really find Brody ugly but he just didn't fit the role lookswise. I'd prefer him in the role of Carl Denham.

James Cann as Billy Rose in Funny Lady.

When I saw Romeo + Juliet in the theaters when it came out, I was actually feeling romantic love for DiCaprio. I honestly don't believe that has happened to me from watching a movie before or since. He had something there, for sure. The man was stunning.

Anna Paquin should have had her teeth fixed.

Not really too pretty or too ugly but miscast– Renee Zellweger in Chicago. Compared to CZJ she can barely sing OR dance. And don’t get me started on her as Judy Garland in the upcoming film (that yes I’ll still go and see on opening night anyway even though I’m sure I’ll... have words to say about it) when they don’t look a lick like each other...

R494 define haggard??

Talking of The Sopranos, one thing that always irritated me was how every single gorgeous woman who crossed Tony’s path would become desperate to sleep with him. I can understand that Tony’s character had a lot of charisma, but come on, he was also ugly as fuck.

R500 yes Renee was horrible in Chicago. However, I've seen a picture of her as Judy Garland, and I was stunned at how much she resembles Judy. That said, actingwise I don't see her pulling it off. Judy was an alcoholic and a pill popper...and I can't picture Renee carrying off this part well.

I really didn't think Renee was bad in Chicago at all. She sang it easily as well as Verdon and Reinking did and I thought she was great, acting wise. The dancing is another story, but she wasn't an embarrassment and it didn't matter if she could dance it or not since Marshall insisted on every shot lasting for .5 seconds to keep things interesting. He even did that to Zeta-Jones who could definitely dance her role.

[Quote] Judy was an alcoholic and a pill popper...and I can't picture Renee carrying off this part well.

She's played a pill popper before in White Oleander.

Mira Sorvino as Marilyn Monroe in that TV movie years ago. I mean, come ON.

R506 what about me as Norma Jean in said movie?

Ashley is beautiful but she didn't look much like Marilyn

Chloe Grace Moretz has a piggy nose.

I was playing Norma Jean, dammit!!!

This thread is proof that gay men have fully absorbed heteronormative propaganda about women's beauty. Now everyone clapped female with a bit of makeup gets called beautiful. Cf. the fag at r165 raving about the fug at r133.

She didn't look like Norman Jean, either

r511 is proof that some gay men are bitchy and jealous of straight women.

r513 I have no reason to envy people whose beauty depends on how much they buy in makeup. And the fug at r133 is ugly even with tons of it on.

You need to have your eyes checked, R514. Nastassja Kinski was considered a great beauty in her day (70's).

R515 only in the 70s??

Too ugly: Ed Wynn as Fritz Pfeffer in The Diary of Anne Frank. Fritz Pfeffer's partner was so annoyed that they picked such a clown to portray him that she wrote an angry letter to the screenwriters.

She sounds like a cunt. Wynn was fine in the role.

R517 LOL! I was an Anne Frank nerd as a teen and always thought that Fritz Pfeffer was a hot daddy! I could not understand Anne not getting along with him. I would very much loved to have shared a room with him at that age (13-15).

Pfeffer & son!

R502 he also had power, which is catnip to women!

Too purty: Dev Patel in Lion. Real life Saroo isn't cute at all.

Too pretty:

Jennifer Lopez > Selena though the latter is not ugly at all; J.Lo is just classically beautiful. Incidentally, I always found it eerie how J.Low (b. 1969) was actually older than Selena (b. 1971). Normally, actors are much younger than the people they are portraying.

Faye Dunaway >. Bonnie Parker although I find the real Clyde Barrow more attractive than Warren Beatty, even in his prime. He just never did it for me.

Clyde Barrow

Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in, "The Doors". Kilmer had little bunny rabbit teeth and his mouth was unable to close naturally. Kilmer had no animal magnetism or charisma, and was totally unattractive and wrong for the role.

Too fug: Miss Karen Lynn Gorney in SNF. She actually wasn't ugly at all, but Travolta happened to look so pretty in that film that she looked like a total dog next to him (and her lack of charisma and acting skills sure didn't help much).

Those complaining about SJP being so unattractive on Sex and The City are correct. The cast member that was so wrong for me was Kim Cattrall. She was too old for the part - by at least a decade - and she had an unattractive figure. She looked good when she was a much younger woman but she was well beyond being able to effectively play the part of Samantha.

wow she looks like a dude...

Sharon Tate was too pretty to play Roman Polanski's love interest in Fearless Vampire Killers.

I hate myself for saying this, but I thought Polanski looked kinda cute in that movie.

OP, Juliette Lewis was perfectly cast as a person with Down Syndrome in "The Other Sister."

Too ugly: TimoTay in Little Women and The King

R307 Both Fanning sisters are homely.

R342 MLP became insufferable to me and I couldn't finish the show. With her bug eyes and bony body ALWAYS wearing spaghetti straps and sucking ice coffee through a straw in EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE.

R455 Quirky and unusual? Yes. Beautiful? Definitely not. She looks a bit like Anne Frank, no offense to Anne.

r529 I guess if you think rats are cute.

R2 - Thank you for bringing up McKee as the totally wrong choice for Irene Forsyte, who was curvacious and had golden hair and dark brown eyes - McKee was a waif with no curves and had black hair and blue eyes. She wasn't even more than marginally attractive.

In the first iteration of "The Forsyte Saga" on PBS, Irene was played by Nyree Dawn Porter, who was much MUCH closer to the alluring Irene.

Jude Law as the cold, odd-looking Alexei Karenin, the husband Anna can't love, in the "Anna Karenina" debacle of a few years ago.

Darken his hair and he would have made a splendid Vronsky.

R405 - Carey Mulligan is about 5'7" - she may be cute but she's no "little pixie".

Love the man and the show, but Ted Danson in CHEERS. 'Sam Malone' was often described by others as a stud/hunk, even gorgeous, but Danson was none of those things. You had to suspend disbelief on that one.

I can't stand that Mulligan woman. She always looks like she's on the verge of crying.

Too ugly: Tori Spelling as the envied popular mean girl/queen bee in A FRIEND TO DIE FOR (aka DEATH OF A CHEERLEADER)

Too Pretty: Kellie Martin as the plain, nondescript girl obsessed with Spelling's character and with becoming popular in same movie

Too ugly: Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. The original take with Barbara Hershey was more interesting. Beautiful but damaged woman is rejected by a man for the first time and unravels because of this. With Glenn, it was just another story about a two-pump dump who can’t stop clinging.