i think whether it's a reasonable idea comes down to how common the trait they are trying to depict is, if it is a really rare trait you are unlikley (staistically) to find someone who has both that trait AND is good at acting.

For males and females, over 3 billion of each, you can easily find someone the right gender of each. For black, again pleanty around. for some ethnic groups they tend to go the non-professional actor route. But for rare traits they more often (and probably rightly?) get an actor who plays the part well and adjust them to make them look like they have the trait the character is supposed to. They didn't even get a real short-guy to play LaTrek in Moulon Rouge.

They didn't even get a real short-guy to play [Toulouse-]Lautrec in Moulin Rouge.

Nor a deaf, dumb and blind girl to play Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.

However, they did get a blonde to play Tess Trueheart in Dick Tracy!

blondes are kinda common, especially if we count the bleeched ones.

or was that character not supposed to be blonde?

So back to my initial remark I posted earlier...

QuoteWhich begs the question should they have cast a woman, a man or a mtf in Hoffmans roll?

I really didn't expect to be ridiculed but nonetheless there are some who feel that need to justify their existence.  I should have said:

QuoteWhich begs the question should they have cast:

  a. A woman

  b. A man, or

  c. A MtF

To play Hoffmans part.

It is obvious to most that generally speaking doctors are not cast as doctors, laywers are not cast as lawyers etc.  However that was not the question.  I asked should a "Woman" a "Man" or a "MtF" have been cast!

It really isn't that important but just something that I thought would have brought out some inciteful opinions.

Sheeesh!

-={LR}=-

Quote from: tekla on August 12, 2009, 06:45:33 PM
Hollywood types don't make 'movies', they do projects.  Most of the time the star is in place before the project is pitched to investors, its a package deal.  And I say that because I'm amazed that we somehow expect that they should hire trans actors to play trans persons, but we don't hire cops to play cops, or lawyers to play lawyers.  What's the difference?

Adding to that, Felicity Huffman was also in the number one rated drama series at the time of the movie's release. Having her in the lead got the movie the attention it did. If an unknown trans actor played her part, the movie would have ended up as one of the obscure trans themed films no straight person would have heard of.

That's another reason I wish they wouldn't have given Huffman a makeup job that made her look 60. She's an actress and being eye candy is part of her job and if her character was made to look at gorgeous as Hoffman is, the movie would have made the producers more money. Instead, Hoffman's character looked forty years older than the woman who was her character's sister.

I would love to see a transgendered actress make it big in Hollywood, but I don't think that's going to happen for many years for a couple of reasons.

1) Most big name actresses start their careers young and usually begin building their resume before 18. An actress's career usually peaks in her 20s, But roles become harder to get in her 30s and almost disappear at 40. When an cisgendered woman can began an acting career, even a young transitioner is still usually distracted by still being in the process of transitioning. Hopefully that will be less of an issue as we have more MtFs transitioning as children and are done with the process by 18 or close to it.

2) There's still a stigma among men that being attracted to a trans woman means your gay. No A list actor in the near future is going to want to have a trans woman as his leading lady and love interest in a film. William Baldwin had no issue with kissing Candis Cayne on primetime TV, but he's hardly A list. A Denzel Washington or Russel Crowe wouldn't want to suffer the damage to their careers that not being considered anything other than perfectly hetero manly men would bring.

OK, here is the insight - or if not insight, at least the facts where the rubber meets the road of reality.

It's as ridiculous as finding a real deaf woman for Children of a Lesser God,

Yeah, and of course, they could have gone, as they did for CoaLG to the trans equivalent of the International Center On Deafness and the Arts, or the National Theater of the Deaf that exist to train and support deaf actors.  Yeah, what's the name of that Trans acting group again?  Oh yeah, there isn't one. And of course, if there were such a group, like the ICODA or NTotD for trans persons you all would heavily support it wouldn't you?  Just like the deaf population has organized and supports those groups.

Of course you wouldn't.  My god, most of you are afraid to have your cover blown by just being around one transperson, much less a huge public display of them.

And, as good as those groups are, and NTotD is mind blowing good, and amazingly funny, they have succeeded in getting one, count them one, person into the mainstream.

Good actors - and I use the theatrical preference of a single word, non-gendered, for both male and females of the acting persuasion - can convince you of just about anything (which is why you never marry them).  On a rare occasion you do get someone who really is that person.  Errol Flynn was such a guy, a movie tough guy, pirate captain, extremely romantic lead who really could, and did, and loved doing it, kick major ass in a bar fight while drinking heavily and doing lots of drugs and have sex (lots of it) with teenagers while sailing his yacht the Scirocco across the Pacific.  (Hence the phrase, In Like Flynn)  But most movie tough guys are like Clint Eastwood, mild mannered, serious professionals who only play the part when the cameras are running.

And it's the whole cameras running deal that causes the problem.  Time is money, and in no place is that truer than in making movies. Every second is the cost of the crew (large) and the rental of the equipment (also huge), plus the cost of the film and developing (ball park is $300-400 per minute, per camera) - not to mention the enormous post production costs - as well as the other costs like accounts, lawyers and cooks/craft service people that has to be paid in full, upfront, before a single penny of revenue comes in.

So that, currently, the average cost of a Hollywood movie (and we're talking average, not huge productions) is now right around $106 million dollars.

Who exactly, even in la-la land Hollywood is going to fork over $106 million dollars on something that was unproven?  Now, TransAmerica was a low budget, independent film.  No doubt a bargain at the mere $1 million it cost to produce.

So, who's got a spare million bucks that they can risk (and make no mistake about it, financing a film is pretty much the equivalent of taking that million bucks down to the track and betting the trifecta) on making a movie about a subject of marginal interest with unknown persons as actors?  Any takers?  Of course not, I read the posts here, half of you are having a hard time making rent, much less tossing around a million bucks.

Now TransAmerica made about $8 million, which was enough to cover the costs, pay back the investors, and maybe make a bit on the side.  And why was that?  As most of the people above have said, it wasn't an awesome movie, but Felicity Huffman (and a few other people in it) did fantastic performances that at least got the film buffs out to see it. If you go to the IMDB 90% of what is written about the movie in the 200+ comments is all about Felicity's acting job. Without her, the movie goes nowhere. Ever.  And Felicity Huffman also was in at that time some TV series that was doing well, so that got some people to at least notice it.

If your good at your craft, you don't have to really be that person (method acting aside).  Anthony Hopkins in real life is a perfect British gentleman, not not that evil, almost a delicious evil, as his character is in Silence of the Lambs.  Though, by all accounts, Jodi Foster is very close to being Clarice Starling, minus the self-doubt. For sure many male romantic leads that make all sorts of girls squirm in their seats and get all wet were very, very gay, or at least very bi, in real life, like Montgomery Clift or James Dean.

And anymore you don't even have to be male to play a male lead, even of a very famous male.  Watch I'm Not There and though most of it sucks, Cate Blanchett playing the circa mid-60s drug addled Bob is perhaps one of the great film portrayals ever. Like Felicity, she was robbed - hell she was outright mugged - by the Academy.

I didn't say they should have cast a transperson in Huffman's role.  I said they should have cast a male.  Like Tom Wilkinson in Normal or Adrian Pastar in Just Like a Woman.

Quote from: GinaDouglas on August 13, 2009, 06:35:58 PM
I said they should have cast a male.

  As long as she did a good job, I'm curious as to why her sex matters.  She was convincing, even though I didn't particularly like the character (somebody said it with the prim and proper business), Huffman was excellent.  I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, but I can appreciate it. 

Now, if you take a movie like Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (a wonderfully ridiculous movie ), I think it was important that Terrence Stamp's character be played by a man.  It fit the circumstances of the story and character, but I don't think the actor's sex matters for TransAmerica.  An actor of either sex could have pulled that off, given they had the talent.

Quote from: Jaimey on August 14, 2009, 12:19:20 AM
  As long as she did a good job, I'm curious as to why her sex matters.  She was convincing

A woman looks like a woman and moves like a woman.  No quality of acting or use of makeup can change that.  Huffman is not even that good of an actor, certainly not of the Streep, Lange, Fields calibar.  She got the part because her TV show gives her high level of celebrity that she could use to promote the film.  I didn't find Huffman to be convincing in the role.

I don't think they care about 'convincing', they care about making enough money so they can make another movie.

I have the movie on my shelf. I haven't watched it yet and I've had it for over a year

Quote from: GinaDouglas on August 15, 2009, 03:58:44 PM
A woman looks like a woman and moves like a woman.  No quality of acting or use of makeup can change that.  Huffman is not even that good of an actor, certainly not of the Streep, Lange, Fields calibar.  She got the part because her TV show gives her high level of celebrity that she could use to promote the film.  I didn't find Huffman to be convincing in the role.

Actually, the fact that her husband was an Executive Producer probably had more to do with it.

Yeah, I had always thought for some reasons that the project was designed with her in mind, so that would make sense.

Quote from: GinaDouglas on August 13, 2009, 06:35:58 PM
I didn't say they should have cast a transperson in Huffman's role.  I said they should have cast a male.  Like Tom Wilkinson in Normal or Adrian Pastar in Just Like a Woman.

Why cast a male? The character in Normal was very early in transition, but Huffman's character was pretty far along.

Quote from: Jib on August 12, 2009, 03:27:29 AM
Was the story and character relaistic. I want more TG stories.

The acting was superb! I love Felicity. But they still showed Bree's femaleness as a facade.  I didn't like that.

Quote from: Nero on August 16, 2009, 10:43:09 AM
Why cast a male? The character in Normal was very early in transition, but Huffman's character was pretty far along.

Agreed. 

Quote from: Nero on August 16, 2009, 10:43:09 AM
Why cast a male? The character in Normal was very early in transition, but Huffman's character was pretty far along.

Agreed. I get annoyed when movies/TV shows cast a woman in drag as a transguy unless he's right at the beginning of transition. When they make the movie of my life, I'd rather be played by a guy (either cis or trans) than by a girl in drag.

Dennis

it had its moments that I could relate to, but the problem was what a cliched, prissy, wimpy, self absorbed dummy the main character was. I loved a lot of it, but to give out the message that we're self absorbed like that and uptight about it is just... Somewhat inaccurate, and insulting... I mean YES people are like that, but they're not the best example...

I agree that the main character was all of those things, but I don't think that she was meant to be representative of all trans people.  She was a very specific character, rather than a stereotype.  In her case, I think connections were made between her past and her current self.  But if you think about those stereotypes, if you think about it in terms of someone who desperately wants to pass, especially if they are insecure, then they would most likely try to take on the stereotypical "female" characteristics...not that all women are prissy, wimpy, and self absorbed, but I think girls are taught to behave that way in front of boys in order to "get a man", or at least a lot of girls I grew up with act like that.  My mom even told me that you should act helpless in front of men to make them feel important.    If that's the case (the learned behaviors), then that may have been her experience with girls when she was living as a man...it's just a theory though.  It's by no means all inclusive or even remotely accurate.