When the Script Says the Character Is Hot, But the Actor Is Not

I own this thread bitches!

Larry on Three's Company.

Female division ...

C’mon, Julie. You know you’re a knockout.

That queeny black guy Noah on Noah's Arc

[quote] C’mon, Julie. You know you’re a knockout.

Yeah, but look who was saying it.

The Second Face!

I always found Ted Danson quite attractive.

That goofball who plays Birdie in the movie Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

I had a gayling crush on Ted Danson as Sam Malone .

Ted Danson was attractive to females... or the way he played Sam was attractive. I had no problems believing that women would fall for him.

that gay elf on youtube wavygravy I mean wavy davy

Betty "Lady Benedict Cumberbatch" Gilpin as Debbie on Glow.

I don't think Ted Danson is unattractive

Justin on Queer As Folk

Robert Pattison in Twilight.

He looks like someone smashed his face into a wall. Not hot.

I found Ted Danson hot in "The Onion Field" and "Body Heat," well before "Cheeers."

Ted Danson was hot and very attractive to straight women - when he was young and now. What is your problem.

How about a character whose unattractiveness was exaggerated. Like Ted Schmidt on Queer As Folk and at the same time Brian was not as HOT as his character was supposed to be.

Young Ted Danspn hot. James Nesbitt young or old not.

R2- Larry on Three's Company was full of himself but his character was NOT considered HOT. He was a tacky straight guy who often struck out.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I agree about Betty Gilpin. Supposedly the complete package - hot body, pretty blonde. But - no.

Billie Piper on Penny Dreadful. She has a frog face.

If we're going to mention SJP. We should also mention Lens Dunham. That cute howdy doody teacher she goes out with. PA-LEEZE. No way a cute guy like that would go out with dumpy L.D. More absurd was when Patrick Wilson's characters on GIRLS fucks her. More science fiction!

I wonder what psychological need caused you to start a thread like this, OP?

Does it make you feel better about your appearance?

Does it make you seem like you're much smarter than Hollywood casting directors?

Helps you channel your anger?

Any combo of the above?

It's commonly known as the "Oh Blossom,you're so beautiful!" trope.

Blossom, Lena Dunham, and other Jewish princesses like Barbra.

Then there's the nice Jewish boys, like how Seth Rogen scored the hot blonde shiksa in Knocked Up.

Any Woody Allen movie that he acts in.

Which one doesn't belong, and only got his job because he's Jewish?

Nancy from Stranger Things.

'I thought my show was diverse because it had a bunch of rich half-Jews just like me!'

She was HOT when she was younger but on Sex And The City Kim Katrall had lots of guys drooling over her. NOT REALISTIC. In one of the first episodes she picks up a guy that Charlotte had rejected earlier. He brings Samantha back to her place then tells her she can't stay overnight-as if to say-you're fuckable but not that hot. That was realistic. But in the later seasons her age was never an issue again with the men she dated.

"Well, hello, beautiful."

Turd Blossom

Blanche Devereaux

Oy vey, da Holacaust, but I play da piano better dan da goyim!

Blanche Devereaux was only having sex with a bunch of old farts. What's the big deal?

The thing about Blanche is that she was never a great beauty. But she believed it was true and that made her attractive to men.

Rock Hudson was signed onto Dynasty to play Linda Evans' lover. He was ravaged by AIDS and looked like death. They wrote him out almost immediately.

Joey on Friends

Rue was pretty in real life when she was younger. Even on Maude she still had some curb appeal.

Desi Arnaz was considered good looking on I Love Lucy. But I always thought he was a bit tubby.

Miss Neanderthal Hips

Meryl Streep in ANYTHING owns this thread, except any period piece.

I think Justin on QAF would have appealed to tops who like twinks with tight booties

Bing Crosby

I personally like Maura Tierney (I’m a big lez), but having Noah Wyle and Goran Visnjic fighting over her on ER was probably pushing it.

I've experienced this feeling a few times watching British shows, leading me to wonder about how standards differ from country to country. Back when [italic]Inspector Morse[/italic] was on, there was at last an episode with the woman who'd broken his heart, leading to him quitting Oxford. Robbie says of her something like "I can see why a man would give everything up for her." And I was thinking: Really? She wasn't ugly, but she was like a 6 out of 10, a 7 if I were being generous.

The guy who played Christian in Clueless.

R49 slim pickings at Cook County General, I guess. Goran was better looking than Maura, but Noah was about the same level of attractiveness. Makes sense he'd go for her.

Ruth Wilson on Luther. I could never believe that there was some kind of sizzling chemistry between her and Idris Elba. They tried their best with hair, makeup and wardrobe, but all I could see was Carrot Top's sister with weird lips.

Ted Danson was not unattractive, and his character was quite charming. I found him to be funny as well on Curb your Enthusiasm where he played himself.

Not sure how many of you watch the excellent Berlin Station, but they cast Rhys Ifans as the spy with such animal magnetism that both men and women fell for him. He's a great actor, but totally not Mr. Heat.

Good examples

Fred Astaire in just about anything.

In the novel "The Graduate", Benjamin Braddock is described as a 20 year old college athlete who has to beat the girls off with a stick.

In “The Breakfast Club” I think Judd Nelson was supposed to be brooding AND sexy.

r37 the jew hating troll is going nutz on this thread. He should stop pointing fingers. Loser.

I never thought Dustin was miscast in The Graduate. He looked fine....and his parents weren't all that.

[quote]I've experienced this feeling a few times watching British shows

There was a British film in which the town stud was played by Colm Meaney. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be funny.

R62, it sounds like an outright farce.

R53 - I would agree, but have to say I always thought Luther was just playing along, placating Alice. I got the vibe that she was def into Luther, but only got a mix of “keep her sweet”, “watch yourself, she’s batshit crazy” vibe from him. Not quite that he was afraid of her, but on the edge.

Ted Baxter was supposed to be visually appealing to the ladies.

I don’t think Alice in Luther is meant to be gorgeous. I can’t remember anyone saying she’s physically stunning? She’s meant to be attractive in a disturbing kind of way. Luther is intrigued by her because he understands the criminal mind and all that.

Ruth Wilson is probably supposed to be more gorgeous in The Affair, where men keep being interested in her and she has the audacity to cheat on Joshua Jackson.

Henry Winkler as the Fonz

R55 does Rhys Ifans have any gay sex scenes in Berlin Station?

I agree he's not particularly good looking, but he's got the charm and/or charisma. I especially thought so in Elementary as Mycroft Holmes.

I don't think Jon Hamm was nearly as handsome or as sexy as Don Draper was supposed to be.

I have to disagree with you on that r69. I started watching Mad Men last week and just about every time Don comes on screen I think, 'that's a damn handsome man'.

Maybe he lost his looks as the show went on, but in these first six episodes he's hot.

(I'm not crazy about the show, though, I might not stick with it. Pete especially is terrible.)

R70, stick with it. It’s the all-time best written TV drama.

There's a reverse of this in Hannibal TV series where one of the characters describes Hugh Dancy's character as " not very handsome. "

The Guardian commented on it.

wtf with the anti-semite who's attacking non-jews as being ugly and jewish??

Barbra Streisand in Nuts, The Prince of Tides, The Mirror Has Two Faces....soft focus and back lighting do not transform an ugly duckling.

Ken Howard guest starring on Golden Girls. Made no sense they were falling all over him.

I second Haggie Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Straight woman here, Ted Danson was not attractive to straight women. He looks like a cromagnon.

I agree with the Alice commenters. She's not homely but Ruth Wilson had negative charisma in Luther.

Clark Gable kept getting paired with young, hot babes even when he was like 55......he didn't age well at all. In Mogambo he looked like Grace Kelly's dad.

R69, I disagree. Especially in the early episodes Jon Hamm was Hollywood leading-man handsome, which is kind of a backhanded compliment as there's something generic about his strong-jawed good looks. Which totally worked for his character, who had a perfect façade and nothing much underneath.

I also disagree about Ted Danson, I think he's very attractive to women (and to me). Not a perfect face but a moderately handsome one, and he's tall and on "Cheers" he had an air of effortless confidence and masculinity. A very attractive man, at least at first.

R74, you seem to think that prostitutes need to be beautiful. It's not so.

[quote]That goofball who plays Birdie in the movie Bye Bye Birdie

Awww, he was cute enough when he wasn't acting so goofy. He came to a tragic end,unfortunately. His career never really took off and after being diagnosed with cancer he had to move back to his mother's home in Monroe, LA where he died in 1979. Never married he was undoubtedly a 'mo.

Anything with Renee Zelweger. Megan Fox too, what's the fucking hypeabout? Also Jeremy Renner and Channing Tatum are uggos.

R69- There's an episode of Mad Men set in California and some woman says to Don Draper- My father thinks you're beautiful-somethin g like that. I said to myself what is this beautiful crap. He's good looking in an average sort of way. NOT BEAUTIFUL.

You guys bashing Ted Danson are nuts. Of course he was hot when he was on Cheers. Part of his hotness was his personality. He oozed charisma and charm.

Larry from Three's Company was not supposed to be hot. He was the epitome of the sleazy pickup artist who'd do skeevy things like lie to a date about his profession or liquor a woman up to get her into bed or something.

Man, not one mention of SJP? You guys are slipping!

Good choice, R67… I second Henry Winkler as Fonzie.

SJP previously mentioned at R22

"That goofball who plays Birdie in the movie Bye Bye Birdie"

They deliberately cast someone who wasn't very attractive, they wanted a Conrad Birdie who was all hype, who wasn't worthy of all the adulation heaped on him.

It's true of most teen idols, like those plain little boys from One Direction and the other boy bands. Their appeal is based on clever publicity and raging hormones, not actual appeal.

In "Valley of the Dolls" Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara is supposed to be a hyper-talented beauty.

Uh huh...

Game of thrones, Rhaegar Targaryen on the book is the definition of a beautiful man. On the show we got this

[quote]In "Valley of the Dolls" Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara is supposed to be a hyper-talented beauty

She was very pretty in the film. But didn't have the film star charisma that she was supposed to have. It was odd casting. But it was an odd film.

Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window".

Anthony Geary - GH.

The part in "Nuts" was offered to Cher first who would have been much more believable as a high priced hooker.

John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasions was a miss for me. I’d prefer Kyle McLaughlin or Jeremy irons

Liza in Cabaret

Liza is fucking brilliant in Cabaret. She's perfectly cast.

R65, the key to the Ted Baxter issue is to watch James L Brooks's OTHER newsroom show, Broadcast News. In that he is played by William Hurt. On TV, Brooks evidently decided to go with the stupid overpowering the hot. Ted looks like a classic TV talking head; while not sexually attractive, he exudes the sort of authority that you see today on Fox. (Which is precisely what Brooks was warning about.)

R88, while not exactly a GoT expert, I think you have your Targaryens mixed up. That is Danaerys's brother. Raeghar was her father or uncle or something - the one that was involved with (spoiler alert) Ned's sister.

No, R96, the Rheagar Targaryan who should have been played by a hotter actor was Danerys's much older brother, not her uncle or father. Rheagar was on his second wife while she was still in the womb, if he wasn't already dead, leaving his baby son Jon without a father. Which makes Danerys Jon's aunt, even if they're about the same age and madly in lust.

Things like that happened when people married young and didn't use birth control, the eldest child of a married couple might be thirty years older than the youngest.

Ted Danson was extremely hot to me as Sam Malone. I agree with the above posters that he had a smooth confidence and an easygoing manner that gave him a sexiness that matched his handsomeness.

And Jon Hamm was preposterously handsome - throughout the full run of Mad Men.

On 30 Rock they sent up his appearance magnificently.

Being a critical gay dude, I can never call someone hot if they have a meh body. Which is why Ted Danson and Jon Hamm never did it for me.

R96 Aerys was her father. Rhaegar her brother. R88 is right- he was not hot on the show.

Viserys was her other brother. Maybe thats who you are thinking of. He and rhaegar shared the same terrible wig.

[quote]Things like that happened when people married young and didn't use birth control, the eldest child of a married couple might be thirty years older than the youngest.

R97 is on the verge of being one of those people who think GoT is historical.

If Jon Hamm were incredibly hot, he'd have become a leading man before Mad Men. In fact, Matt Weiner said he has trouble getting him past the network because they didn't think he was handsome/sexy enough.

Not a great picture of Thomas Jane, but look around.

What Hamm DID embody, IMO, was the 1960s straight arrow dream dad. Not the counter culture guy, but the guy in the commercial who played the handsome dad who worked on Madison Avenue or in finance. I think the dad part of his look was crucial.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in anything. She also pulls that "beautiful genius" crap in every interview.

Ted Knight portrayed Ted Baxter as a total goofball, which killed any sexual attractiveness he had. But it was all a character. The REAL Ted Knight was intelligent and handsome in his own right. He grew to resent his success on MTM because he was totally identified with the idiot Ted Baxter character. I always thought Ted Knight, himself, was sexy as hell. He had a great ass, too. It stuck WAY out but was usually hidden by the sportcoats he wore on the show.

Gary Cooper

NPH on How I Met Your Mother.

Blanche Devereaux

NPH's character wasn't supposed to be hot

Nope, nope, nope. Ted Danson was not hot.

penny marshall as laverne

Ted Danson was not hot - particularly not in the image upthread where he looks dirty, greasy, and is obviously wearing a wig. He also has so much hair on his chest you could send loggers in there.

I do not think Ted Baxter was meant to be "sexy". He was meant to look like your basic "handsome" newscaster, and sound like one too, which he did.

Please. Gary Cooper was hot.

R89 as you said Patty Duke did look pretty in the film and was pretty in real life, but the character of Neely O'Hara it's not about her looks, it's about her Talent. There's even a line in the movie, where she talks about Sharon Tate's character and that she, Neely, did not get by on her good looks. Something like that LOL

Agree with R51 re Christian.

Also agree with the Meryl Streep comment. She always looks like SJP's mother, or Mr. Ed's daughter.

Re Danson: he was always a good looking man but his body was crappy and he always wore Mom jeans. But he was indeed charming in a way that overcame the bad bod.

Totally agree about John Malkovich in Dangerous Liasions. His acting was great, but he didn't look the part.

And I know this is heresy on DL, but Judy Garland in A Star is Born. A frumpy, middle-age, bloated alcoholic as the fresh-faced ingenue who is breaking into movies? Sure, Jan.

The gal who played the wife in The Firm

Jack Tripper

Kelly Taylor

Also an endorsement of Blanche Devereaux and The Fonz

I thought Ted Danson was gorgeous in Creepshow.

Calista Flockhart as Ally Mcbeal as a hot young lawyer men drool over in the streets.

R116 I know Kelly looked like a chipmunk but she had the hair and she was a rich bitch so I think that was really all she needed to be Queen Bee.

Calista Flockhart was very pretty and has star quality.

^Hi Calista!

I never watched entourage but was adrian grenier’s character supposed to be hot? I know he was supposed to be a big hot shot actor. He looks like he should be cast as a Geico caveman though. If they cast him for that, they could cut the makeup budget in half!

R16 I find him very attractive in his non-Twilight roles.

R120 she was pretty in season 1 when they spent time on her hair and makeup. From season 2 on she lost too much weight, her hair became lank/broken and she didn't age well.

R102 The characters are much younger in the books. In the books, Jon is like 14 at the beginning, not pushing 30.

R122 Great example.

R120 she was pretty in season 1 when they spent time on her hair and makeup. From season 2 on she lost too much weight, her hair became lank/broken and she didn't age well.

[quote]I agree about Betty Gilpin. Supposedly the complete package - hot body, pretty blonde. But - no.

I don't think she's butt ugly. She is odd looking and has a psycho killer face in a good way. Her odd face suited her well when she played a Aspergers woman on several episodes of Elementary.

Trevor Bannister, who portrayed the "dashing womanizer" Mr. Lucas on "Are You Being Served?"

Kristen Stewart is a good-looking woman, but was miscast in "Snow White and the Huntsman."

Fuck off with your tedious anti-semitism R37, Adrien Brody is hot. And yes, I have noticed he has a big nose. So fucking what.

Jennifer Lawrence in pretty much all of her movies. Stumpy legs with a face like a full moon and dead eyes.

How about Catherine Keener in "Being John Malkovich"?

Would a starving artist working as a temp be immediately attracted to her air of steaming freaky sexiness, or would he notice that she isn't anywhere near beautiful?

Nearly every women on Grey's Anatomy.

Annalise on HTGAWM.

Tony Weiner in "Surviving Auschwitz"

Rebecca on Cheers

[quote]Nearly every women on Grey's Anatomy.

When I watched that show years ago I laughed at Ellen Pompeo being paired with Patrick Dempsey and also the crap storyline of Sara Ramirez's character being knocked up by Eric Dane's character. A lesbian friend of mine used to watch and she said that she found Sara Ramirez to be repulsive and she said she never got how the Callie and Arizona characters became popular with lesbians. She thought the writing for their storylines was crappy

[quote]I do not think Ted Baxter was meant to be "sexy". He was meant to look like your basic "handsome" newscaster, and sound like one too, which he did.

Ted Knight was a dark horse. The character of Ted was supposed to be much younger and a love interest for Mary Richards. But they had enormous problems casting the character. They brought Ted Knight back like eight times to audition because no one else came even marginally close to what they wanted, except for him.

So they had to rewrite the character away from Mary's love interest and outside of a few early references by Rhoda and Phyllis to Ted being handsome not much was really made about Ted Knight's hot looks (if any). I never found Jack Cassidy (who played his brother) to be hot either but Rhoda thought he was.

Kevin Bacon in "Picture Perfect."

Danson had a handsome face but a terrible body -- no chest, no butt, and bad posture.

Agree with the Meryl Streep poster above -- she has an interesting face but she can't play beautiful or even pretty.

The reverse was the case for Anthony Howell in Foyle's War; Howell was model handsome, but the part was written for a gimpy, war-addled plain man.

R133 -- You're kind of right, but that happened because Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener read the scripts after being cast and then begged to switch roles -- Diaz wanted to play frumpy, Keener wanted to play glamorous, so everyone went along with it. I thought it worked well.

Ted Damson was hot and op is an idiot.

SSipwas ok back in the day but now? No. She is seriouslyvunattractive now and I wish she would accept that.

The young actor on that Ellen Barkin show is not attractive...why did they chose him? I can not watch the show with him in the lead.

I love Meryl but her looks do sometimes get in the way of a role, even with her magnificent talents.

She was genuinely hard to look at in RICKI IN THE FLASH (a terrible movie, anyway). Her character is a hard-living, aging rocker in rehab, but she's supposed to have a sexy, dark charisma.

Meryl looked like a 2000-year-old lizard with braided extensions.

And 30 years earlier, she played Carrie Fischer in POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE.

Another insecure, post-rehab type. But Carrie was still (while struggling with sobriety and weight), a cute, sexy, fun girl when she was in her late 20s (the time of the story).

Meryl looked like a sad 40-something waitress at a Phoenix airport rest stop.

It's a cute movie at moments, but so much less fun than it could have been.

R144, the one with the hot ass?

And one more: Meryl in MAMMA MIA.

Even given an (elderly) Meryl playing a middle-aged Mom...

Three handsome men were fighting over... this?

I think Meryl is beautiful. Especially in "Still of the Night", "Sophie's Choice", and "French Lt's. Woman". I LOVE "Postcards" and I love Carrie but Meryl is 100 times more attractive than Carrie Fisher ever was.

The one time Meryl looked gorgeous was in Manhattan.

I don’t find Owen Wilson remotely attractive and worthy of leading man roles.

Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston are not worthy of being called hot either.

Leonardo DiCaprio in Great Gatsby. I have to admit that I've never read the novel, but wasn't Gatsby supposed to be handsome, charismatic and a bit mysterious? By the time that movie was made, DiCaprio had lost both his looks and his boyish charm. He looked bloated and saggy, and his attempts at pulling off the character's enigmatic aura made him appear creepy. I think Baz Luhrman wanted DiCaprio for the role because he remembered him as the stunningly beautiful young boy from Romeo + Juliet. He probably thought he could make him shine again. But it didn't work out.