Totally baffled as to why this guy is a movie star.

"...and the acting there was exceptional." Guess that's why he's a movie star.

Apparently, you've never heard of Dustin Hoffman or Humphrey Bogart. They could be called "weird looking", too.

Maybe you should stick with Keanu Reeves movies. He can't act his way out of a paper bag, and he has the
personality of a door knob, but, hey, he's supposedly a "handsome" movie star.

Honestly, I couldn't recommend watching Nick Kroll in anything... He was in the show "The League" which started off ok before going fast downhill but I wouldn't even suggesting watching it...

That narrative you mention re Adam Driver is interesting because I think something similar must have been done with Daisy Ridley. I remember the story going that she was some poor struggling actress working in some London pub when the call came through from JJ that she had the part. Yet I read the other week there that she's from some wealthy connected showbiz family.

Deployed or not it really doesn't matter. Some Marines are never deployed because of long periods of peacetime. I remember I had this conversation with a kid in high school in the 90s. He was like "did your dad go to Vietnam?" I was like "no." Then my friend was like "so he was a draft dodger?" My dad joined the military when he was 18. But when the Vietnam war ended my dad was 17. My dad and his dad weren't far apart in age, but they started their military careers in different eras. My dad was still in the military. He retired at age 38 after serving 20 years. As far as I know he went over to the gulf in the first gulf war, but I don't think he did much over there other than repair aircraft.

I completely agree with this, about wanting to see new actors, although I think Adam Driver still falls into the new actor category so he gets a pass from me for being in everything FOR NOW.

I also see movie actors have started turning up in tv series. If the same person is playing every character, then it feels like they are all the same character, even if they actually are totally different characters. Also, if the big name actors never give anyone else a chance, then there will not be younger actors maturing into the field and getting experience. Not every new actor will be a good find, but every year or so I see young actors who are not apparently "the chosen ones" and they are really good to watch in one show, and then I never see them again, but the same actors with the same kind of looks ("the chosen ones") show up again and again, sometimes to the point where I can't figure out what is going on in a show because all the female characters have the same hair and same face and body shape and same on-screen (lack of) personality. Someone please make it stop.

I think lots of movie/tv actors are financially middle class and then some famous ones are obscenely wealthy. But they are just people.

I totally agree that it is so disappointing to find out when actors have feet of clay. I don't expect them to be paragons of virtue or angels in real life, but some of the things you read about, you just think, I don't know anyone in real life who behaves this badly. I don't know if it is that Hollywood corrupts people, or that the environment is mentally unhealthy and they just can't cope, or what it is.

I do think that the publicity machine, the papparazzi (can anyone spell that?) is a toxic force in that the privacy of actors is often invaded, sometimes fans seem to treat them (or think of them) like objects instead of people, and that there is an expectation of physical attractiveness required for their jobs that would probably be unhealthy for any person. (At the same time, most of these people are VERY nice looking and it's hard to feel TOO sorry for them.)

I think you are so right about writers and directors. We need to be paying more attention to those people, and let actors have their private lives more.

YOU WOULD KNOW.