“I didn't think I'd ever be able to do movies. That was for serious actors.”- Steve Buscemi

“Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don't work, and then they work again.”- Frances McDormand

“We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie.”- Javier Bardem

“Most actors will read a script and think, that's an interesting part. That blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense.”- Hugh Grant

“It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa.”- Dirk Benedict

“It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.”- Miranda Otto

“Comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. They risk more than anyone.”- Rachel Weisz

“I always say if you've seen good acting on television, those actors are really good. Because you don't have any preparation.”- Sasha Alexander

“There's nothing more boring than unintelligent actors, because all they have to talk about is themselves and acting.”- Tim Robbins

“I just feel lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not. I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not cast again.”- Judi Dench

“A lot of actors get concerned about their own image, even going so far as to rewrite a movie to best serve that image. All I want to do is be in good movies”- Michael Douglas

“I'm always described as 'cocksure' or 'with a swagger,' and that bears no resemblance to who I feel like inside. I feel plagued by insecurity.”- Ben Affleck

“I used to google my name to see what came up - it hurt.”- Emilio Estevez

“Being an actor is the easiest job. Just say the lines.”- Jonathan Rhys Meyers

“I went to the audition for a laugh and got the part for the way I walked down the corridor. There's no justice is there?”- Ray Winstone

“I know very little about acting. I'm just an incredibly gifted faker.”- Robert Downey Jr.

“First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.”- Michael Caine

“I'm an actor... I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don't ask a truck driver about his job.”- James Gandolfini

“Every actor looks all his life for a part that will combine his talents with his personality.”- Walter Matthau

“A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn't matter how good you are.”- Denzel Washington

“Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself.”- John Gielgud

“Everything must be as in real life.”- Anton Chekhov

You get your pancakes, I’ll get my bad American headshots.

May 26, 2009 | 1 comments

In an episode of Arrested Development, David Cross’s character, the speciously gay psychiatrist-turned-aspiring actor Tobias Funkë, has a series of desperate, over-literal and hilarious headshots done. In each of the four of them, Tobias stands in front of a mottled blue photo backdrop, eyebrows arched, head cocked in childish apology, alternately bedecked as an office worker clutching a green folder, a doctor complete with head mirror, a headband-sporting tennis player, and an S&M guy in a leather vest and ballgag.

It’s funny as hell, not just because of how David Cross is gamely holding his own leash as if he’s offering it to you, but because it’s only vaguely unrealistic. All over the world (but let’s be honest — mostly in L.A.), desperate actors and terrible photographers produce embarrassingly overstated headshots that are (bless their little cotton socks) more like car crashes than calling cards. From the transgressions of the 80s and 90s (leather jackets, bare chests and cycling shorts anyone?) to more modern Funkë-esque costume pictures (It’s my E.R. shot!), headshot photography can be long on irony and short on sense.

Last year comedian Patrick Borelli and photographer Douglas Gorenstein decided to exploit the unintentional hilarity of awful American-style headshot photography by publishing Holy Headshot, a so-called “celebration of America’s undiscovered talent”.

Sure it’s easy to make fun, but from the outrageously overstated to the embarrassingly earnest, maybe the most shocking fact is that every headshot and resume in Holy Headshot was freely and willingly submitted by its owner. Here is Pete Traina, “Cocked, locked and ready to rock”, who glowers with crossed pistols in one shot while looking like a creepy veterinarian in another (and is that an actual child’s hand in the picture?). And freaky stay-puft trailer mom Cindy Clark, her mascara as black as the rose tattoo that gloops out of the top of her denim tubetop.

The book’s website has some great samples, but be sure to check out the Meet the talent page, where you can watch a handful of the book’s most insane subjects blabber, chew scenery, and generally attempt to dazzle you with their star power. My absolute favourite is Yenz Von Tillborg, a kind of gender-bending pirate nutbar who ad-libs some dialogue from Dracula. “You? You get your pancakes. I get my blood!” It’s an internet meme waiting to happen.

Holy Headshot contains a forward by Funkë himself, David Cross, and is available through Simon & Schuster via holyheadshot.com, in bookstores, or you can order it directly from Indigo online.

Jesse Thorn’s enhanced podcast The Sound of Young America has a great interview with the books editors, and shows quite a few of the pictures. Check it out, or listen to the unenhanced embedded version below:

And if you think Toronto is immune from this kind of headshot horrorshow, think again. From a certain big-name shooter’s trademark “unbuttoned jeans” pubic-hair peekabo to the dozens of dodgy pictures turned out every day on Craigslist-powered “portfolio” sessions, you’re always only a picture away from casting office infamy.

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One Response to “You get your pancakes, I’ll get my bad American headshots.”

  1. Chris Frampton says:
    May 26, 2009 at 6:09 am

    Just as a local epilogue, there’s a great Canadian Facebook group called “Headshots you can never use”, which has frequently made me shoot drinks out my nose. If you’re logged in, check it out here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2406162265&ref=ts.

    Reply

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