THERE is ugliness in Hollywood, but only on the inside. Which is why the casting directors of these had to cast tanned and toned actors with glowing veneers:
Uglies, 2024
An adaptation of a young adult novel where everyone’s considered ugly without cosmetic surgery which, it transpires, also makes them dull and controllable. If you’re 12 you’re amazed by that metaphor. The movie casts undeniably gorgeous Joey King as the cast-out misfit, because producers don’t understand metaphors written for 12-year-olds.
The DUFF, 2015
Another teen movie offender sees Mae Whitman labelled as the “designated ugly fat friend” for the crime of being very slightly shorter than her equally stunning co-stars. Much like forerunner She’s All That, a film that believes putting an actress in dungarees automatically makes her a munter.
The Batman, 2022
Male celebrities have lower standards of beauty than their aggressively youthful female counterparts – hence Adam Driver – but this symphony of misery dared to be different. Once named the sexiest Irish man on the planet, Colin Farrell was naturally a prime contender to play a hideous mobster named after a waddling bird.
Freaks and Geeks, 1999-2000
TV show centred on the aesthetically unfortunate on the margins of society, which starred handsome leading man James Franco alongside blonde Busy Phillips and brunette Linda Cardinella, all of whom are so attractive they would cause an awkward silence in a lift.
She’s All That, 1999
Can the campus hunk turn any random girl into the prom queen in just six weeks? Yes, if that girl is former model and FHM star Rachel Leigh Cook. North Korean elections are less blatantly rigged as contests.
Frankie and Johnny, 1991
An unglamorous story of waitress and short-order cook with criminal record, both working at a shithole New York diner, hooking up? Adapted from the Broadway hit starring unprepossessing F. Murray Abraham and Kathy Bates? Then surely casting leading man Al Pacino and stunning beauty Michelle Pfeiffer at the height of her powers will work?
Wuthering Heights, 2026
The upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights stars Jacob Elordi, who looks like his parents were a Greek goddess and the concept of wealth, as bitter, twisted foundling Heathcliff. Margot Robbie, meanwhile, will play a good honest Yorkshire lass raised on the Moors and a stranger to the sun. But with an orthodontist on speed dial.
