6 Words Commmercial Casting Directors Have Used to Describe Me As Ugly
In Increasing Order of Cruelty
As corporate showcases of simulated honesty, TV commercials are the only branch of the entertainment industry that is gnarled and twisted enough to feature homely people on camera for reasons other than nepotism or their successful music careers. If a thing of beauty is a joy forever, then ugly gets exactly 30 seconds.
For that reason, commercial acting is a rite of passage on the time-honored journey from “new arrival in Los Angeles” to “the humiliation of moving back home.” Every day, friends of friends are brought into agencies with names like Sunflower, where they will hear for the first time from anyone, including their mothers, that they have a great look. Los Angeles, a place so shallow that it is autocompleted when you google “veterinary plastic surgeon,” is also the only place where ugly people can go professional.
Once we do, we receive sporadic invitations to audition—from the Greek word meaning “to humiliate oneself for free”—via emails that describe the person that a particular commercial is looking for. These emails have to be direct enough to convey to the recipient that they want him because he looks as though he was conceived during a hiccup, but also sufficiently tactful to inspire him to fight several hours of traffic to get to an office in Santa Monica, where he will assure a stranger behind a camera of his willingness to shave a question mark in his body hair, as he stands underneath a sign announcing that “actors will be towed if they use the parking lot.”
Here are six euphemisms commercial casting directors have used to describe me as ugly, in increasing order of cruelty:
1. “Quirky”
This person could be good-looking, but for some psychological defect that expresses itself in his appearance.
Example: Clark Kent.
2. “Interesting”
People who look “interesting” are like evolution’s concept album that critics viewed as a brave misstep. The interesting will find themselves spending long periods of time with other members of the opposite sex, but when push comes to shove, that is what those people will do to avoid kissing them.
Example: Mr. Potato Head; all Kennedys not named John.
3. “Specific”