It’s getting harder and harder to tell movie stars apart… Beyond the Chrises (Pine, Hemsworth, Evans, and Pratt,) there are Ryans Gosling, Reynolds, and Phillippe. And Ryan Murphy shows have a rotating cast of square-jawed, dark-haired guys who are so interchangeable it’s even a joke on set. Instead of movie stars, we have movie star types. So who are these male movie star types, and why is it getting harder and harder to tell your favorite actors apart?
TRANSCRIPT
Hollywood is experiencing an Attack of the Handsome Boy Clones. It’s getting harder and harder to tell movie stars apart. Just look at the four different superhero stars with a similar body type all named “Chris”
maxthabest: “I’m sorry Pine you’re just not beating Thor.” – TikTok
Beyond the Chrises, there are Ryans Gosling, Reynolds, and Phillippe. And Ryan Murphy shows have a rotating cast of square-jawed, dark-haired guys who are so interchangeable it’s even a joke on set. Instead of movie stars, we have movie star types. So who are these male movie star types, and why is it getting harder and harder to tell your favorite actors apart?
Today’s everyman handsome lead archetype has become clear: lightly stubbled men with impossibly chiseled abs who are often named “Chris.” Who is Chris, you ask?
Chris is the action hero who’s a lot like us – if we were a little bit funnier, and went on a very intensive diet and workout regimen. Despite their well-cultivated physiques and cute faces, Chris actors were originally known for being relatable, everyman comedy stars and they’ve been turned into superheroes, almost overnight.
Chris is often comedic, can be sweet and feels like an okay guy. At the same time, he’s not overly distinctive or different, which is part of his mass appeal. Each of the Hollywood Chrises has been plugged into different big-budget Hollywood IP, whether it’s Chris Hemsworth in Men In Black, Chris Pratt in Jurassic World, Chris Pine in Star Trek, or Chris Evans in Lightyear.
Buzz Lightyear: “There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere.” – Lightyear
It’s hard not to feel like any of these Chrises could be swapped out in any of these properties without too much changing. So, no matter which Chris is your favorite, ultimately the core of Chris is that he’s an interchangeable Ken doll.
That’s because each Chris has moved steadily toward the intersection of blockbuster action and goofy comedy, reflecting broader trends in movies. Chris Hemsworth started playing Thor as a serious character who eventually became one of Marvel’s biggest sources of comedy.
Thor: “We know each other. He’s a friend from work!” – Thor Ragnarok
Meanwhile, Chris Pratt got his start as a sitcom star before going on to play a hilarious action hero in Guardians of The Galaxy, and even a NAVY Seal. Next there are the Ryans, who are not only both Canadian; they look so much alike that Ryan Gosling often gets mistaken for Ryan Reynolds on the street, and a news outlet once confused the two of them in a post about Gosling’s role in the Netflix film The Gray Man.
That makes sense: Even though Ryan Gosling started out as a child actor and rom-com heartthrob and Ryan Reynolds came up in comedies like Van Wilder, the two have developed similar energies—both Ryans have an aura of being amused by everything and a sense of detachment, keeping at a remove that makes them perfect as either cool action heroes, quippy wiseasses or loveable losers.
There’s also the type of actor we can’t keep straight in Ryan Murphy shows, whether that’s Cheyenne Jackson as the icy therapist Dr. Vincent on American Horror Story: Cult or Max Greenfield as strung-out Miami hustler Ronnie on American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Pop quiz: Can you tell whether this is Cheynne Jackson, Max Greenfield, or Wes Bentley? These seemingly interchangeable men have dark hair and strong jaws. And in each case, Murphy takes someone who’s classically attractive and makes them unsettling.
Donovan: “I have better cheekbones anyway.” American Horror Story: Hotel
Beyond that, as Buzzfeed has pointed out, it’s really hard to tell apart blockbuster stars James McAvoy, Luke Evans and Orlando Bloom. Elijah Wood and Daniel Radcliffe channel that slightly otherworldly everyman energy to anchor a fantasy epic. Zac Efron, Chace Crawford and Ian Somerhalder can all sub in for each other as that hot, former “cool kid” type who’s now maturing into adulthood.
Resembling a famous actor can also fast-track a less known actor’s career – because audiences may respond to their general familiarity, or even mistake them for the A-lister, and casting agents get that Hollywood effect for a lower paycheck.
All this look-alike casting is less about showcasing a unique actor giving a performance than selecting someone who can embody a vibe. In big-budget action movies, the vibe calls for a Chris. A slightly quirkier and funnier but still mainstream-appealing movie might call for a Ryan. And a Ryan Murphy anthology series needs that brand of handsomeness that freaks us out.
The fact that it’s hard to tell these actors apart isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. As writer Matthew Jacobs put it in The Huffington Post, quote, “A Hollywood once organized around heavyweights like Joan Crawford, Robert Redford and Will Smith now favors intellectual property in which specific actors are largely beside the point.”
This gives the actors a lot less leverage. It’s why, apart from the absolute biggest names, the stars in Marvel movies actually make much less than you might think, and several of them didn’t get to negotiate for higher salaries until they became established in the roles.
There have been periods in the past where stars had an in-vogue look or body type. In the 1980s, action heroes were often impossibly huge guys like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarznegger
Major General Franklin Kirby: “Leave anything for us?”
John Matrix: “Just Bodies.” – Commando
Arnold came from the world of bodybuilding and became the idealized male body, to the point where it was considered surprising when Die Hard cast Bruce Willis—a smaller, leaner guy who, at the time, was most famous for the romantic TV show Moonlighting.
After that, for a while, male movie stars were slimmer and prettier. Take Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, or Jude Law and Keanu Reeves. Today we do still have giant action heroes, but they tend to be what we’ve called “the buff clown” – huge bald guys who can also do comedy, in the vein of Batista, The Rock or Vin Diesel.
Now that these certain categories of looks have calcified, they might not go away anytime soon. Access to improved technology and expensive personal training regimens has made it possible to standardize the appearance of Hollywood heroes, in ways that would have been much harder even a few years ago.
In some respects, this use of strict training regimens and tightly controlled bodies really reflects that men are getting the same treatment female stars long have. For years, actresses in Hollywood have been pressured to conform to whatever standard of beauty is popular at the time, ranging from the dangerously thin starlets of the early ‘00s to curvier stars chasing after the Kim Kardashian look. That’s why older coverage of stars looking the same almost always focuses on women.
And of course, this dates back throughout the entirety of human history, as beauty standards change from generation to generation. In the same way that women have been subjected to overwhelming standards for attractiveness, these training programs and diets are designed to turn someone’s body into the theoretical, impossible ideal. And that process can have real, negative effects on someone’s mental health and self-image—just ask Kumail Nanjiani.
Kumail Nanjiani: “People are like, ‘Do you feel good about yourself?’ And I’m like, ‘No. This is the most miserable I’ve been in my entire life. I’ve never felt worse about myself’” – Ellen
Having such a homogenous look makes it much harder to achieve real diversity and equity in Hollywood. As a result, we see less leading Black, Asian, and Latino actors—even though this contributes to Hollywood actually losing money. And when all of the stars look and feel the same, it’s hard for any one person to command real power over studios the way someone like Tom Cruise does. The elimination of the need for movie stars has gotten even more pronounced as Hollywood moves toward endless sequels, which eventually demand new actors to replace older ones.
The hunt for a new James Bond is a hunt for an actor who can seamlessly embody what we already think of as Bond, while bringing some variation to the role. Even when the actors aren’t dead ringers for their counterparts, they’re often still cast because they have a similar charisma and overall screen persona. Oscar Isaac was cast in Star Wars because he channels some of the same swaggering disrespect for authority as Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, something the series makes explicit by pitting him against Leia in The Last Jedi.
Leia Organa: “You’re demoted.” – The Last Jedi
Eventually, technology might make it possible for studios to avoid having to ever recast these roles at all. The most recent season of The Mandalorian featured a cameo from Luke Skywalker, made possible by a combination of de-aging, deepfake technology, and audio clips stitched together from decades of Mark Hamill’s public appearances. This is the same technology that allowed actor Miles Fisher to become a draw, because he can credibly impersonate Tom Cruise.
When our stars are so interchangeable, we lose the power of true stardom—someone whose magnetism and acting talent makes you look at them, and who bends a scene around them. It’s hard to imagine one of the Chrises, or even most of the Ryan Murphy crew, having the specific energy of someone like a young Jack Nicholson. In fact, one of the most famous actors alive right now is successful precisely because he doesn’t fit into any of these previously established molds.
Kylo Ren: “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” – The Last Jedi
Adam Driver first became famous as Lena Dunham’s love interest on Girls, where he played a character who was charismatic at times, but also undeniably weird. Of course, Adam Driver is hot and athletic—in some respects, he’s a typical star. Except that entertainment writers feel compelled to pen articles about his quote, “really big face.” Adam Driver’s popularity isn’t in spite of his appearance, it’s because of it. No matter who he’s playing, it’s hard for us to look away—something that can’t always be said for any of the various movie star “types.”
So we should think twice before getting rid of stars altogether. When stars are truly unique and in demand, they have a lot more power over what roles they take, and can demand that the material they’re working on rise to their level of mysterious originality.
Sources
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Cowles, Charlotte. ““Descriptions of Adam Drivers Really Big Face.’” The Cut, 8 Nov. 2013, https://www.thecut.com/2013/11/descriptions-of-adam-drivers-really-big-face.html
Coyle, Jake. “Study: Lack of diversity in Hollywood costs industry $10B.” AP News, 11 Mar. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-demographics-hollywood-25ab017a013d7f2e4225f45f1570ccf7
Fisher, Miles. “How I Became the Fake Tom Cruise.” The Hollywood Reporter, 21 July 2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/deepfake-tom-cruise-miles-fisher-1235182932/
Freeman, Hadley. “Why do all celebrities look the same?” The Guardian, 16 July 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/jul/17/fashion
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