Do you have to be good looking to be an actor and how important is it?

[mids2019]

There are some great actors who aren't particularly attractive but in my opinion the acting really is of high quality. It does appear though that good looks do go a long way to overcome lack of true acting quality and I have seen a stream of US films over Christmas where you have dubious acting but the actors are drop dead gorgeous and this acts as a distraction.

How far in your opinion does attractiveness manage to put weigh being a slightly less than great actor?

I always thought Ruth jones had a pretty face

To be proper big, you need to be both (especially as a woman). Looks , but not much talent tends to be average ,shoehorned into one role type stuff. Talent , but average looks /or even "ugly" tend to be the same . Great talent , with average looks /"ugly" though, have more of a chance to make it big.

Ahem ... Timothy spall. But if you don't have the looks, you have to be MEGA talented and charismatic like he is, whereas you can be mediocre and beautiful ( Keira knightly, could name hundreds in this category tbh) and make it.

I think she's stunning and also looks young for her age.

It depends what you mean by good looking. I think most people can look attractive with professional make up. And most of the so called beautiful actors would look very ordinary if you saw them without make up and expensive clothes walking in the shops.
Talent though is more difficult to fake.
There are a lot of actors that are not conventionally beautiful but they are beautiful to watch because their performances are so good and they can make you believe in what they are doing.

There are plenty of actors who in my opinion would not be classed as very good looking by most people's standards.

What sadly seems to be more important is upbringing and schooling- more and more actors/actresses seem to have had a private school and/or Oxbridge education.

@ladygindiva, when I saw the title I immediately thought of Timothy Spall,(who I thought absolutely crushed it playing Norfolk in Wolf Hall).
Also Toby Jones is brilliant in anything he is in.

Agreed. Also Jared Harris who although not handsome I find strangely sexy

Yes the cast of Detectorists is a case in point (re. Toby Jones). Although the women are more conventionally good looking than the men even there. The best pairing in Rivals is not the tediously typically good looking people but Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson.

For roles outside of lead things may be changing a bit even in Hollywood. We went to see Wicked yesterday and the ensemble was pretty diverse in all sorts of ways (this might be due to its MT roots though where a lot of the casting is now much more varied). But it's a tough business anyway, I've got family who are actors and they do a lot of voice and training work to pay the bills which is not untypical.

Katherine Parkinson is gorgeous. Heck Spall isn't that bad looking.

I do wonder if there are some other factors like having to be a normal build and height just to fit into the frame with other people. If you are the only person in shot. I guess it doesn't matter if you are little, big or in-between. And I wonder how much the don't view actors in profile happens. You get some wonderful looking flat faced people.

I’m an Actor and I’m not ‘Gorgeous’ I class myself as normal looking not your average beauty. So yes you can become an actor no matter your looks providing you’ve had training and experience.

I think very good looking actors get multiple chances to prove their ability. And in the process their acting skills improve.

Someone less good looking can make it as a character actor, but they probably need to have a greater level of talent as directors won't give them a second chance.
But even the best character actors need to have interesting, watchable faces, even if they aren't classically good looking.

Agree about Ruth Jones, Nessa looked beautiful in the finale. She acted amazingly throughout it, emotion coming through so well

Maybe he inherited something 'sexy' from his Daddy.

Symmetry goes very far. There's on screen presence. Like Nick Cage has

see, I really don’t like Nicholas Cage because I don’t think he has any charisma. His acting seems wooden.

Whereas (currently watching Mission Impossible) Tom Cruise, he does have screen presence as well as looks. Don’t particularly like him as a person, but apparently he’s supposed to be a real charmer & I think it shows.

I loved how Stephen merchant uses his height and features when writing his part for the outlaws.

I also love Toby jones and Stephen Graham.

Nicola Walker has always had an unconventional sort of beauty but is convincing in everything she is in.

Rami Malek is certainly doing well despite not being particularly attractive. If add Killian Murphy but know I'm preview outvoted.

Did you mean you think Killian Murphy is unattractive?