Hollywood isn't a meritocracy 🙄
Yikes
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Aladdin star Mena Massoud: 'I haven't had a single audition since film was released'
- Thread starter litebrite
- Start date
Yikes
I mean... they are most certainly going to do sequels to the movie and he will be in them.... doesn't change his experience with the rest of the industry, but a Disney+ series is exactly where a spinoff no one cares about would go.
I'm sure Mena appreciates twiddling his thumbs for a couple of years until a new Aladdin movie while his white colleagues get work in the meanwhile.
I can never picture him as anything but his character from The Pacific and saying "sledgehammer"
He is great though.
He has been relegated to TV too. That's why this story came out. He is making the press rounds for a Hulu show he is in.
Are you really being "relegated" now if you're a star on a show featured on a big streaming platform? I mean, Brie Larson has an upcoming show on Apple TV, and she's a significantly bigger star than Massoud.
He didn't get relegated to TV, that series deal happened before Aladdin. I just think it's funny how people try to paint it as a positive that a lead of a movie should be happy that he's going to be in a sequel while other Disney actors who might seem in lower roles are getting consistent work. There ain't nothing stopping Disney to have him in a series.
I don't fully disagree, especially in this age of television, but I feel like we have to be honest about how different the situations are.
1. Brie Larson also has plenty of movies in the works.
2. She's an executive producer on the Apple TV show.
3. It's Hulu. They're US-exclusive. Who even knows if, when and where that show might air internationally?
I get it, but I'll just say this: there's never been once a good tabloid website or writer, going back to the days of Hedda Hopper who literally ruined lives by making shit up.
But even the quotes don't say anything really. Every actor has roles they will say "don't bring these to me" and Mena's not said anything that indicates he is angry he's not a big star. All he said is he's not getting auditions and I'm more inclined to believe that simply because Hollywood really sucks on diversity.
There's more money in TV than in movies these days, get on a good series, even if limited, and you can make more money than the lead in a movie. He's the star of it which is great but it's episodes have been shot and in the can for probably months now and he's still waiting for his next job apparently.
Mark Hamill had a huge problem with typecasting.
After Return of the Jedi, Hamill started working on Broadway to try and diversify himself, and he starred in "Amadeus". One year later, they made a movie version of that play, and Hamill offered to do it, and a studio executive said "I don't want Luke Skywalker in this film".
So Hamill took a six-year break from Hollywood.
When he came back, he got B-movie roles. Until he landed the role voicing Joker in Batman the Animated Series (which established him as a star in the voice-acting world).
Daniel Radcliffe was so desperate to break away from Harry Potter and have people take him seriously as an actor, that his first job after Potter was a Broadway play which required him to do full-frontal nudity.
Think the best part is people telling us not to care about rich people while using a tabloid as a source that his net worth is around 2 million.
Hell, it's not even the point.
Hell, it's not even the point.
Get a better agent, change agencies? I mean you should be able to get an audition for commercials easily if not as a bit role in something.
But he's gonna be in Tiny Spoons: An Aladdin Story, right?
I really hope this is sarcasm.
Difference is that white dude kept getting work. For a long time.
Yup. $2m CND isn't a lot when you factor in things like cost of living, housing, etc, it doesn't stretch very far.
Throw in that his earning potential is severely limited too due to lack of roles and opportunities.
hollywood is nepotism. there are thousands of meryl streeps and denzel washingtons out there who don't get work. that's how it goes.
I mean on the plus side, Aladdin could easily become an adventure franchise with Aladdin 2 and probably 3 at least, and he should be able to land himself a very nice pay raise for both of those projects. He should easily be able to command $2-$3 mill USD each for those, doubt Disney would want to recast and mess with a billion+ earner.
It's not entitled to want more work and bemoan you not getting it even after you've been in a very successful movie and your co-stars are doing fine. Hundreds of other actors should also be able to complain. Don't give that bootstraps garbage.
All actors complain. Apparently there's 130k actors around the US, all competing for the same roles. Don't be one if you can't handle the down time.
How many actors though were the lead in a billion+ Hollywood movie? And how many of those can't get an audition? He's not asking even for a role.
I have an actor friend and am aware of the down time but unlike you I wouldn't tell him to just suck it up. Damn, you just have no empathy for actors, huh.
Yeah. Think of any actor, there are more than just one of them. Actually, arguably thousands and even more. Hollywood is extremely well known to be a family / good friend industry. It's how a lot of pretty bad actors, writers, directors, etc get work because it's not about being good about your job, it's about who you know. Mena probably has little to no connection and coupled with his ethnicity, he is almost rarely going to get work while someone like Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts, will continue to get work even though she's a pretty mediocre actor and that's she's white.
Do you think all those people who go to Hollywood with dreams of being a big star are terrible actors? No. I'd wager a lot of them do quite well. It's just good acting, writing, directing, etc aren't the requirements.
An agent lives off commission. If they see a person with little trajectory, they're not going to really want them as a client even if they've been in a billion dollar movie. Being the lead in a billion dollar movie doesn't mean a whole lot when it's not driven by you. Joker, the film, is carried by Joaquin and the name Joker. Alladin is literally carried by the name itself. You could replace the roles with anyone who even remotely did the same adequate job as the actors in Alladin and it would still make the same money.
he´s not complaining that he didnt get part, he´s complaning that even after being the lead in a 1 billion movie he´s not even get auditions, any white actor after leading one of the biggest movies of the year at least would have a few auditions
That's wild. I love Amadeus the film and never knew that Mark Hamill was in the musical version it is based off of. He would've been fantastic in that role.
Pretty sure any other dude would bring in as much money for that Disney property , especially considering that he didn't really stand out in the film
Your argument is all over the place. Yes nepotism allows bad actors to get roles, but Denzel is not a bad actor, hes actually an incredible actor. And his family is not from showbiz at all. He worked his way up from theatre to television to film. And he took bit parts and support roles long before he was a star. Nothing was just gifted to him.
Im not saying your arguement is wrong in every aspect, but i strongly disagree with using Denzel fucking Washington as your example of someone who got to where they are because of industry connections.
I am not saying Denzel is where is he because of nepotism (he probably thrives now because of his connections), but that there are people of his acting calibre getting very little to zero work.
It seems that everyone is overlooking that. A hit movie and a major role in a tv show in the same year. Sounds like he is doing ok.
Unlike 99.99% of his competition he got a HUGE opportunity to show what he was capable of on a stage in front of hundreds of millions of people.
The fact that he still managed to be completely forgettable isn't casting directors' fault.
I can definitely empathize, but you literally can't get a bigger launch platform than this, other than being a Trump family member.
If he had white skin he would have no problem getting auditions at least and probably some OK supporting roles. There's not many roles for someone who looks like him in Hollywood, lets be real. He's "too ethnic" looking.
i recently saw the film and i enjoyed it the most from all the live action disney films and i gotta say aladdin definately did a great job
i mean why not make a live action version of aladdin 3... its actually quite okay as far as disney dvd sequels go (2 is horrible though)
people in the arts are usually not rich... you need to be at least a little bit famous to make a bit of money. if you are a noname you get paid peanuts.
even worse.. they probably often have to pay to play... for example for demo or pilot stuff.
Well technically he wouldn't have to audition for any Aladdin project. I'd be shocked if Disney isn't doing Aladdin 2
User Banned (2 weeks): Insensitive commentary, history of infractions
Are you serious with this?
The most paid Hollywood actor is a black man and we have plenty of "Non white actors" getting major roles in several movies.
I guess Mahershala Ali, Idriss Elba, Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Eddie Murphy and Laurence Fishburne to name a few does not count?
Maybe his acting was not good an no one cares?
(looks at bank balance)
I think I would also like to be comfortable please.