Well, no. I want someone capabale of acting. But... well, okay, I suppose I'm basing my limiting parameters on my wife's community theater experiences. I was asked by people to try out (but did not, because the wife's show-practice time is my writing time) because I'm a tenor, and tenors are in short supply. My wife, on the other hand, is a beautiful woman, a fine actress, and a soprano... which meant that she was competing with the three hundred other sopranos going for the same two roles.
Good-looking women who know how to act are not, contrary to geek-culture popular belief, in short supply. Even if we limit it to "Women who can pull off looking white, athletically built, and brunette (or raven-haired, whatever)", you're still going to have a ton of possible actresses. Why not narrow the search parameters to "And also, is actually athletic in real life"?
I will, of course, agree with you on Linda Hamilton. Ideally, the best choice would be someone who is easy on the eyes, athletic as heck, and capable of delivering a compelling performance. I think that most of us will agree on that. I'd just like to come at it differently -- instead of starting with "hot actress" and trying to get her to move athletically, why not start with a hot athlete and try to get her to act? We see the former all the time, and it leads studio producers to conclude that "America isn't ready for strong female heroes", when what it really means is "America isn't interested in seeing hot actresses with three weeks of training try to act like martial artists with embarrassing results."
This doesn't seem to be the case (as much) on the guy side of things. Most of the guy action heroes hit it big with their physical ability and blossomed, actingwise, later in their careers. While it leads to a lot of dumb-guy-movie jokes, it's successful from a box-office perspective, and I'm surprised that the studios often choose a hot actress who can't fight over a hot actress who can fight for female-hero action movies, given that there are enough actresses to choose from that you'll probably have a hot-and-can-fight one available and that the level of acting ability in the -and-can't-fight ones hasn't been noticeably better.
Anyone seen Kathy Long in late-night B-movies? Not an Oscar performance, any time I've seen her (the ones I remember include a postapocalyptic cyborg movie, a "lone stranger takes on town terrorized by bikers" movie, and a smallsupporting role in a movie about an Australian guy who runs the unluckiest bar in the universe), but she hits like she means it, and when she steps up to somebody, I believe that she knows what she's doing, instead of what I believe when Jennifer Garner makes a martial-arts pose move, which is "Okay, which stunt coordinator told her to put her hands there?"
(That's not a slam on Garner. If she practices for as long as Alias keeps running, eventually she'll be pretty badass. But right now it's not believable.)
I'd rather see a brunette version of Kathy Long than Madeline Stowe attempting to perform memorized-by-rote martial arts moves with lots of choppy editing.
If we're going for big-name actresses, my offhand interests would be:
Hillary Swank: Body type isn't at all how I imagine Wonder Woman, but she seems to be good at adapting her body for a role, and she learned how to punch.
Michelle Yeoh(sp, sigh): While I imagine the notion of an Asian Wonder Woman would cause fits throughout geekland, her gravitas, combined with her physical ability and beauty, would be impressive. Also, she's got a lot of experience with wire work.
Michelle Rodriguez: (er, the girl from Girlfight and SWAT, right?) Younger than I'd think, and not quite the look I'd go for, but I've been surprised by the way actresses can disappear behind good makeup and costuming into a role, and again, she seems to know how to hit things decently.
Claire Forlani: (I think -- the Irish woman from that awful Jackie Chan movie, the Medallion) Possibly a guilty pleasure here, but I was unabashedly awed by her looks, and she actually made the parts of the movie with her in them watchable. She didn't wow me with her martial arts skills, but she looked at least athletic.
Good-looking women who know how to act are not, contrary to geek-culture popular belief, in short supply. Even if we limit it to "Women who can pull off looking white, athletically built, and brunette (or raven-haired, whatever)", you're still going to have a ton of possible actresses. Why not narrow the search parameters to "And also, is actually athletic in real life"?
I will, of course, agree with you on Linda Hamilton. Ideally, the best choice would be someone who is easy on the eyes, athletic as heck, and capable of delivering a compelling performance. I think that most of us will agree on that. I'd just like to come at it differently -- instead of starting with "hot actress" and trying to get her to move athletically, why not start with a hot athlete and try to get her to act? We see the former all the time, and it leads studio producers to conclude that "America isn't ready for strong female heroes", when what it really means is "America isn't interested in seeing hot actresses with three weeks of training try to act like martial artists with embarrassing results."
This doesn't seem to be the case (as much) on the guy side of things. Most of the guy action heroes hit it big with their physical ability and blossomed, actingwise, later in their careers. While it leads to a lot of dumb-guy-movie jokes, it's successful from a box-office perspective, and I'm surprised that the studios often choose a hot actress who can't fight over a hot actress who can fight for female-hero action movies, given that there are enough actresses to choose from that you'll probably have a hot-and-can-fight one available and that the level of acting ability in the -and-can't-fight ones hasn't been noticeably better.
Anyone seen Kathy Long in late-night B-movies? Not an Oscar performance, any time I've seen her (the ones I remember include a postapocalyptic cyborg movie, a "lone stranger takes on town terrorized by bikers" movie, and a smallsupporting role in a movie about an Australian guy who runs the unluckiest bar in the universe), but she hits like she means it, and when she steps up to somebody, I believe that she knows what she's doing, instead of what I believe when Jennifer Garner makes a martial-arts pose move, which is "Okay, which stunt coordinator told her to put her hands there?"
(That's not a slam on Garner. If she practices for as long as Alias keeps running, eventually she'll be pretty badass. But right now it's not believable.)
I'd rather see a brunette version of Kathy Long than Madeline Stowe attempting to perform memorized-by-rote martial arts moves with lots of choppy editing.
If we're going for big-name actresses, my offhand interests would be:
Hillary Swank: Body type isn't at all how I imagine Wonder Woman, but she seems to be good at adapting her body for a role, and she learned how to punch.
Michelle Yeoh(sp, sigh): While I imagine the notion of an Asian Wonder Woman would cause fits throughout geekland, her gravitas, combined with her physical ability and beauty, would be impressive. Also, she's got a lot of experience with wire work.
Michelle Rodriguez: (er, the girl from Girlfight and SWAT, right?) Younger than I'd think, and not quite the look I'd go for, but I've been surprised by the way actresses can disappear behind good makeup and costuming into a role, and again, she seems to know how to hit things decently.
Claire Forlani: (I think -- the Irish woman from that awful Jackie Chan movie, the Medallion) Possibly a guilty pleasure here, but I was unabashedly awed by her looks, and she actually made the parts of the movie with her in them watchable. She didn't wow me with her martial arts skills, but she looked at least athletic.
