Toast on Toast by Steven Toast

Author:Steven Toast
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

I think I have described in detail the many pitfalls of miscasting. It is an area closely linked to typecasting. This is the familiar problem of an actor/actress being closely associated with one type of role and finding themselves ‘stuck in a rut’ of playing similar characters for the rest of his/her life. One thinks of Tom Hanks, who, after playing the hapless halfwit Forrest Gump, was then doomed to portray foolish idiots and gormless imbeciles for the remainder of his career. One could also mention Michael Gambon, a most versatile actor, but since playing a grumpy hospital patient with a skin disease in Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective (1986) has rarely played anything much different since. Peter O’Toole regularly complained that after appearing as Lawrence of Arabia he was inundated by producers offering parts where the character was required to do little else but ride camels. Pierce Brosnan will always be associated with someone who mows lawns after starring in The Lawnmower Man. (Stereotyping can also, of course, occur outside the acting world. Margaret Thatcher, for instance, will always be linked to her position as British Prime Minister, or Pope John Paul II as a Pope.)

Because I excel in a wide variety of roles, I have never been in this unfortunate situation myself but can understand the frustrations of many performers who have. I have known three actors personally who have attempted to kill themselves as a result of being typecast. Bizarrely, each then got a reputation for being suicidal and were subsequently offered numerous roles as neurotics and depressives.

Actors, generally, and especially unsuccessful ones, will of course take more or less anything that’s going. They have little choice. It is an insecure profession. Even superstars such as Daniel Day-Lewis and Angelina Jolie are usually forced to do pantomimes at Christmas. So what hope is there for the aktoruntermenschen65 down at the bottom of the heap?

It is to be expected, then, that being miscast or typecast is not a problem which many performers contemplate when they are starting out in their career. My advice to a young actor would be, if in doubt, always accept a role. I would definitely advise this no matter how bad, humiliating, degrading or physically dangerous it might turn out be. Even if the decision results in a fatal blow to your career, you end up homeless and hungry and searching through dustbins for something to eat, and you regard it as the worst decision you ever made in your entire life, I would still say ‘sign on the dotted line’. After all, one never knows when the next job offer will arrive in your inbox.

I heard a very funny story once about a classically trained actor who was rather desperately searching for work in the 1970s. His agent, after exploring many avenues, finally managed to get him a part in the Wombles’ movie, Wombling Free. The rather pompous actor protested that he was ‘far too good’ to accept a role in a children’s

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