Ugly Model Agency

[ideologyhunter]

It's a real thing. It's based in London and has a wikipedia article and various YouTube videos. The management is actually looking for striking character-filled faces for advertisers who go off the beaten path. I was put off by the strident use of "ugly", but the owner/creator of the agency addresses that in one video, and I came around to his logic.
Fun to explore if you have a half hour and want to surf through a strange topic on the internet.

 

[Elixir]

Heh. I try not to watch TV ads (I record content and skip the ads) but when I see them, I often wonder at the courage of some of the people in the ads who showed up to audition looking like that.

 

[thebeave]

I've often wondered about this going back to when I was a little kid watching TV and there would be an episode revolving around someone who was ugly. If you're an actor who beat out 175 other people for such a role, would you celebrate your "win" or would you be like, "Uh...gee thanks. I think?!" I guess if you can accept who you are and not let it bother you, you could get yourself a shit ton of roles in horror movies, afterschool specials, zombie movies, prison movies, etc.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Going way back to the silents and early talkies, there was a character actress named Louise Emmons with very strange, bulging facial features. She played hags, witches, and crazy ladies in Hollywood films. Wikipedia has an article on her, including the sad situation of her burial.
Several Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes called for supposedly homely women that served specific purposes in the plots. You wonder how the casting call is phrased for those roles -- how diplomatic can you be, when you're looking for women who can play an unattractive or dumpy character? (Aida Turturro, who was Janice on The Sopranos, took one of those Curb parts, and she was incredible, stealing all her scenes.)