In her thought-provoking book Trophy Lives: On the Celebrity as an Art Object, Philippa Snow observes that “there’s something self-abnegating in regards to the desire to be a really superstar, requiring a saint-like level of devotion to non-public transformation, sometimes extending to mutilation and self-sacrifice”. The “mutilation” that Snow is explicitly referring to is cosmetic surgery, and while we don’t have the statistics to showcase the variety of celebrities who’ve resorted to cosmetic surgery, we do know that various them get work done – from the celebrities who’ve different faces and hairlines every few months, to the incontrovertible fact that increasingly more of them have been transparent about their cosmetic work over the previous few years. 

Due to their incredibly public-facing jobs, where they’re subjected to intense scrutiny on and offline, celebrities engage in acts of mutilation as a solution to assert some control over their constant surveillance. Also they are constructed (by their teams and the press) to be recognised as God-like figures, even once they don’t desire to be seen as such. Still, they follow the principles to keep up relevance, admiration and, ultimately, their careers, moulding, breaking and rigorously altering their bodies within the seek for perfection. Nonetheless, invasive or non-invasive cosmetic surgeries can come into conflict with what made them famous in the primary place, especially in the event that they’re actors. 

“I loved Wicked, but I used to be so distracted by Ariana Grande’s performance as Glinda because her face didn’t move throughout the film,” a friend complained after watching Jon M. Chu’s Wicked late last yr. This wasn’t the primary time my friends and I even have had this conversation after watching a bit of media recently. While everyone on my timeline raved about Netflix’s No person Wants This, the American romantic comedy show starring Adam Brody and Kristen Bell, I could barely get through the primary episode. Partly because I assumed it was cringe, but additionally because I used to be so distracted by how much Bell’s face had modified from when she was on NBC’s The Good Place from 2016 to 2020. In The Good Place, Bell is mouthy and emotive as Eleanor Shellstrop, but in No person Wants This, her face is tight and snatched as she plays Joanne. This became much more apparent when she shared the screen with Brody (who seniors her by just one yr), whose crow’s feet and brow wrinkles are deep and distinguished – and I wasn’t the one one who noticed this either.

Beyond being distracting, Botox and fillers can significantly impact the believability of an actor’s performance. An actor’s most important job is to convey to the audience the emotions, thoughts and feelings the character is experiencing and tweakments block the face from producing the expressions and micro-expressions which help portray these. Additionally they hinder believability when portraying characters from the past. As an illustration, Dakota Johnson’s role as Annie in Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1817 novel, Persuasion, faced harsh criticism not just for the film’s poor portrayal of Austen’s work, but because critics believed Johnson had “iPhone face” – a face that has not only seen an iPhone before but has been impacted by modern beauty standards prevalent on smartphones. In consequence, viewers find it difficult to imagine that such characters belong to a unique era.

The usage of Botox and filler by actors has been a subject of conversation for a long time. In 2003, Amelia Hill wrote an article for the Observer titled, “Actors warned to maintain off the Botox”. Within the piece, she writes: “Botox injections and collagen implants have turn into so widespread within the British film industry that producers and directors are refusing to employ actors who’ve fallen under the thrall of the so-called pretty poison”. On the time, directors resembling Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann complained that “Botox is so popular amongst actors that they aren’t any longer capable of act with facial features”. 22 years later, the “pretty poison” problem is much more widespread among the many Hollywood elite, with movies now including cosmetic surgery storylines and using actors’ own relationship with cosmetic surgery to reinforce their narratives, from Halina Reijn’s Babygirl to Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. This example is already arguably confining talented performers to roles of characters who’ve undergone cosmetic surgery or are perceived to have had access to it, resembling Nicole Kidman, who, lately, has been typecast because the sad, affluent wife accustomed to cosmetic procedures.

While actors having work done is a more normalised fact of acting now, it still worries casting directors like Emily Brockmann. “It’s now actually quite unusual for actors to haven’t modified their faces as they reach a certain age threshold. I might say it’s mostly the 40s plus category,” she tells Dazed. “Botox and filler provide you with a really specific look, and I do think most people is rather more attuned to it now since it’s becoming rather more prevalent in society. And that’s where I believe it becomes difficult. It doesn’t lend itself to the credibility of the role. It detracts from not only the performance the actors are giving but additionally the part they’re playing. It doesn’t ring true, it feels quite false.” It’s not surprising that Brockmann has noticed that some actors’ performances feel false, because it has been reported and hypothesised that Botox not only removes visible signs of ageing (in addition to signs of happiness and frustration) but additionally impairs one’s ability to convey and feel certain emotions.

Botox and filler provide you with a really specific look, and I do think most people is rather more attuned to it now since it’s becoming rather more prevalent in society. And that’s where I believe it becomes difficult. It doesn’t lend itself to the credibility of the role – Emily Brockmann

Even with all of this in mind, Brockmann is sympathetic to the plight actors face nowadays, particularly women who’re pressured to look ageless and are punished professionally once they don’t. In a recent interview with the Guardian, actress Keeley Hawes remarked that roles for midlife women are slowly improving but are still not great. By the age of 38, Hawes was solid as a grandmother, and now, on the age of 48, she is playing a retired hitman within the upcoming Amazon Prime thriller series The Assassin. Unlike their male counterparts, women “age out” of younger roles incredibly quickly (and whenever you’re an individual of color, gendered ageism hits harder), which leads many actresses down the road of cosmetic surgery or considering it by the point they’re of their mid to late 20s. To lots of them, it doesn’t feel like they’ve another selection. 

30-year-old actress Zoé is considering getting Botox for this exact reason, but feels deeply frustrated by how hypocritical the film and TV industry is regarding how they need actors to look. “If you happen to hearken to any skilled in the sector, from make-up artists to actors to directors, everybody claims that a natural look is best, that ageing is gorgeous, and Botox is fake. There are such a lot of concerns around Botox making you look fake or desperate, and no one wants to present a desperate woman a job,” she remarks. Nonetheless, at the identical time, “we see the faces of the individuals who get to work through different a long time and so they all have work done”.

So, where can we go from here? A lot of us have noticed the negative impact Botox and fillers have on an actor’s performance, and it might feel like there’s no way out of the twisted hellscape they exist in. Actress Annice Boparai believes that “The acting industry at all times has and at all times will probably be an industry where you’re solid largely in your appearance. I don’t think that can ever change”. She continues: “But I believe the narrative around ageing is what needs to alter. We’d like to hold on writing higher roles for older women and celebrating the wonder present in age somewhat than erasing it.” And she or he’s right; the acting industry has at all times been about appearance. Within the Nineteen Thirties, several Hollywood starlets swallowed tapeworm eggs to drop some pounds, and Marilyn Monroe had work done on her chin-line. A superb solution is to put in writing higher roles for ageing people, particularly for girls. But could more be done to alter the way in which we view acting primarily through the lens of aesthetics? 

In 1955, Elia Kazan, director of several culturally and historically significant movies and plays resembling Pinky (1946), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1955), wrote what’s often known as “The Actor’s Vow” – a pledge that an actor took (and still take to today) before performing on stage to commit fully to their craft. He wrote: “I’ll take my rightful place on the stage, and I will probably be myself. I’m not a cosmic orphan. I haven’t any reason to be timid. I’ll respond as I feel; awkwardly, vulgarly, but respond. I can have my throat open, I can have my heart open, I will probably be vulnerable. I can have anything or every thing the world has to supply, however the thing I want most, and wish most, is to be myself.” Who adheres more to Kazan’s vow than those that allow themselves to be themselves, to live within the discomfort of their very own bodies and to let the world see them as they’re? Is that this easier said than done? In fact. But what’s the choice? Either all of us have the identical perfect teeth, immovable foreheads and Eurocentric features, or we could fight for difference, vulnerability and the possibility to actually have our throats and hearts open for the world to see.