There was a time in my life when i was trying my luck in modelling and acting. As I had some casting director friends who always told me i should start giving auditions and give it a shot, I considered doing it in my sabatical period. Auditions were always fun. You find a bunch of people sitting with you, rehearsing the same scripts with different expressions and trying various ways to impress the casting director. One strange thing, and for me one of the most irritating fact about auditions were that 90 percent of the ‘artists’ as they address the candidates there, just looked alike. Most of them carried the same look, well built muscular persoanlities with fair skin and the clean shaven look. After a point I was so bored of guys looking exactly the same like the other one sitting next to him, that i slowly started losing interest in even checking out guys around me. I always wondered why is it so important to look this way for an audition. How do directors pick actors for their characters with negative and rustic looks, how does the judgement thing work for them. I got even more curious when at one such auditions which was for an ice cream brand’s print as, the casting guy came out and asked some of the boys to go get a clean shave and come back for the audition. While some with heavy breard where directly declared not fit for the character. I decided this time to talk to them as i got really excited to know why? I spoke to the cameraman as soon as i was done with my audition. He laughed at first but the explained the reason why majority of the times people are declared unfit. The character age groups that i audition for are basically in their late teens or early 20s, if characters in this age group sport a beard it makes them look older than their age which doesnt work for the camera. On television beard and a stubble is actually something used when they wish to show that the character is aging or is going through a rough phase in his life and id depressed and not in a state to worry about his beard. They would definitly not want their lead actor with a chocolate boy appearance to look depressed or old. He also told me about this one show for which they had to pick one out of the two shortlisted actors and one of them was picked over the other just because the clean shaven look worked for him. Bad luck for the other one i must say. This one experience made me realise the underlying messages that a clean shaven confidednt look could convey. It really matters alot!
‘This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette”
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