Don’t Act, Reason #23: You will become blisteringly aware of how unattractive you are.

That last essay naturally leads me to this horrifying place.  America is a funny country when it comes to looks.  Obesity is an epidemic according to CNN whenever there is a slow news day, and they punctuate that statement with unflattering and egregious shots of rotund waistlines meandering down the streets.  And while the majority of us probably aren’t morbidly obese (unless the images on CNN have warped your viewpoint to the degree they have mine in which case you genuinely believe the country in its entirety is eating nothing but donuts and Budweiser popsicles,) most folks are overweight and rely on elements like personality and wealth to remain attractive to potential romantic interests.  Americans do well for themselves, we have lots of money, and we treat ourselves right.  We eat, we drink, we live like a lot of the rest of the world doesn’t get to: we live large, so to speak. 

But then our movies and television shows are filled with borderline (sometimes not so much) anorexic women and men with washboard stomachs that require at least four hours a day in the gym along with an extremely stringent and limited diet plan.  Of course, these comic book-styled human beings manage to have all of the same habits on screen as we do: they smoke, they drink, and they eat.  You have to fully understand that when the camera goes off, none of that lusciously real behavior transpires. 

When you attempt to make a life in show business, you rob yourself of the ability to enjoy food and spending inordinate amounts of downtime on your sofa.  You can’t be normal, and by “normal” I mean a person who eats cookies, or you won’t have a shot at competing.  You don’t need a washboard stomach to be an accountant.  You don’t need to have big tits to be a schoolteacher.  You don’t need defined pectoral muscles and impressive biceps to work in a tollbooth.  But if you want to act, you do.  There is an exception to this rule, of course, in the case of the “character” actor.  A character actor can be fat, ugly, or both, but that must be extreme, or there is no work to be found.  What I’m saying is that in show business there isn’t much room for the average looking.  You’re either drop dead gorgeous or you fell out of the ugly tree, hit every branch on the way down, and then were attacked and raped by a bear.

When I first set out for Los Angeles, I believed I was above it all.  I was an actor, not a model, and the passion I had for my craft, my work ethic, and my talent should sway anyone into seeing the attractive person underneath what may be a bland exterior (of course, I don’t actually consider myself to be bland looking.  I think I am fantastically gorgeous in a non-traditional way.  But to make that statement here wouldn’t exactly lend itself to this essay, now would it?  So, yeah, learn to read in between the lines.  I’m sexy as fuck.)  The very first call-back I ever got was for a Taco Bell commercial.  I was nervous, naturally, and I couldn’t quite believe how close I was to having a professional job.  I went into the casting studio after the assistant called my name, and there were several people, strangers to me, eating vegetables with dip and ready to judge.  The director was this long-haired, Gucci-clad dude with fingernails painted black.  I sat down and got ready to take my shot, and he started laughing.

“Damn, Todd,” he said, “You’re funny looking.”

Then he paused and looked at me.  I was too shocked to speak.

“That’s a good thing,” he continued.  “You’re going to work a lot.”

I didn’t get the job.

Up until then, however, I thought I was an okay looking guy.  I mean, I had managed to get laid in college.  But, in the true fashion of an actor spiraling into his own insecurities, the comment suddenly made me feel that maybe the girls who had slept with me were slumming.  Was I an oddity, and worth sleeping with only to enhance their appreciation for truly good looking people?  Was stooping to fuck a warped creature such as me akin to putting on a pair of shoes that are too small in order to be extra appreciative of the ones that fit?  Or had my ex-girlfriends all simply settled?  Maybe there weren’t enough pretty boys out there, and sometimes the funny looking were the only way to go?  Or worse still, were they all getting together and laughing about the funny looking guy with whom they had slept?  Was I some kind of big sexual joke?!  Was I a lousy lay?  Was my penis too small?  Jesus, my penis was too small!  Small, small penis!  God save my tiny penis!  Penis! 

I hated that fucking guy with the stupid black fingernails.

That was just the beginning.  As I came up, so did movie stars like the handsomely chiseled Ben Affleck and the dreamy surfer boy Matthew McConaughey.  If in college I looked in the mirror and saw something reminiscent of Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings movies, after only a few months in Los Angeles I started seeing an elf in the mirror.  Then, as Eric Bana and Josh Hartnett got famous, that elf morphed into a hobbit.  And then that guy from Entourage, and I’m seeing a troll.  One brief glance at Paul Walker, and I was fucking Gollum.  (Precious.)

Of course, I don’t see this monster every day.  Sometimes I like the way I look, in fact I’m damn glad for the way I look.  But then I go for three or four months without booking a job, and once again I start to see this impossibly pale and pudgy stomach that gives way to a body that a woman would only possibly want to put up with because I happen to be a nice guy.  (And for the record, I stand six feet tall and weigh one-sixty-five, which any doctor will say is a very healthy weight.)  Of course, when I start to feel this way, all I have to do is drive out of the city.  As soon as I leave the Los Angeles city limits, I start to feel better looking.  And the further away from L.A. I get, the more handsome I become.  Not too long ago, I spent an afternoon and evening in an American Legion in the Midwest…I was the best looking dude in the room!  Granted, there were only about eight people there, and only two of them were male, but still!