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Why do big movies cast unknowns?
Why do unknowns always seem to be in pretty good big-budget movies like Harry Potter? I have never seen them before, but they are all great actors. How do directors find them?
—Kelsy, Jacksonville, North Carolina
Actually, this B!tch has discovered there is such a camp. But as per usual for the brilliant, I get ahead of myself.
Two big reasons why no-names get cast: budget and character. If a director wants to blow up many things on the big screen and hire squadrons of nyurds to create rubbery, computer-generated supervillains, that takes a budget of somewhere in the upper millions.
Tack on an A-list star like Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis, and congratulations, your budget just reached into the hundreds of millions. Nowadays, such budgets are very unpopular with financiers—very 2004. Instead, producers increasingly opt for either special effects or a star...not both.
The other reason: Producers may like the instant audience that comes with hiring a Nicole Kidman type–but Nicole Kidman types also come with baggage. People often can't see past Nicole the Flying Pagan (Bewitched) or Nicole the Swing-Happy Courtesan (Moulin Rouge). Unknowns, besides being cheap, also lack a body of work that can interfere with an iconic character.
Enter Brandon Routh in Superman Returns.
As for where filmmakers find such virgins, there are agencies like Talentworks that specialize in developing young actors.
But there is also a camp. I kid you not.
Young actors from Natalie Portman to Zach Braff to Bryce Dallas Howard have passed through the Stagedoor Manor camp in New York state. In fact, the place has gotten so well known agents and whatnot blow through there all the time, looking for new faces.
"Nickelodeon comes here quite a lot," the camp's Konnie Kitrell tells me.
I imagine camp courses include Crying with an Alien, Looking Cute in Coveralls, Lithping and of course, Inexpensive Preciousness.
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