I went to a pretty fancy law school and honestly I didn’t even know what civil procedure actually was until the first day of class. My classmates whose folks were lawyers definitely had a leg up on me if just from knowing the thiev— lawyers’ cant alone.
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The greatest American actor of the 19th century, Edwin Booth (yes, brother to that Booth) was the son of Junius Brutus Booth, an English actor who immigrated to America.
Theatrical families go back hundreds of years.
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Henry Fonda begat Jane and Peter, Peter Fonda begat Bridget Fonda. Robert Montgomery begat Elizabeth Montgomery. Martin Sheen begat Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen. Sure, the scions of famous people are more visible and have access that newbies can’t attain. But being the offspring of a famous person is a double-edged sword.
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I often forget that Edwin Booth was this superstar. It would be like if we woke up to hear that Joseph Fiennes had done in President Biden with a blunderbuss.
“Wait… the guy from Schindler’s List? And Taken?”
“First, Taken was Liam Neeson and secondly, no. The guy who was Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love. Ralph is his brother.”
“Oh, right.”
“Wait, why did he kill him?”
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Of course lots of them are talented. The argument isn’t that they got the jobs despite being not talented.
The argument is that there are many talented actors, but the ones with familial connections are the ones that seem to be getting jobs.
Unless you are connected via family, it’s incredibly hard to break into acting regardless of how good you are.
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You gotta watch the Drunk History episode about that sometime. Edwin’s comeback to the stage following his brother’s crime was quite the story.
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Jean Renoir - son of . . .
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Depends on who you’re talking about. I’d say Lena Dumham and Joss Wheedon got their starts more becuase of family know-how while Paulie Shore* and John Belushi because of family connections.
*His mother owned The Comedy Store and gave a lot of big name comedians their start. Shore’s career made a lot more sense when I learned that,
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Having tutored high school students whose parents didn’t go to college, I’ve been pretty impressed with the stuff that they didn’t know that seemed obvious to me. For example, that one can get various test and admission fees waived if you can’t afford them. For example, how to read the admission statistics and other stuff on those college description websites. For example, that most students applying have not faced any of the challenges that they faced and considered, well, that’s life, but sometimes you win one.
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right?! i mean both families have been “Hollywood Royalty” since Hollywood was even Hollywood! Barrymores go all the way back almost a hundred years.
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See also Zoey Deutch. She’s been great in what I’ve seen her in.
I knew she looked familiar. She’s Leah Thompson’s daughter.
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I come from relative privilege, in that my parents were artists and my dad made a good living as a photographer. But neither they nor their parents went to college and they didn’t have the slightest idea of how it worked or even what, exactly, it was good for except for prestige (which they did understand). I went to a good college, but my friends with college educated parents had a much easier time.
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I’m a third generation actor*. You’re right, and it would be nice if every role had an open call instead of just who casting people had in their files already and who agents they know feel will make them money. SAG-AFTRA has always pushed for more open calls, but they’re expensive and time-consuming and you have to wade through 90% of horrible auditions to maybe get to a couple of people worth considering. Is that good for the industry as a whole? Maybe, but nobody is responsible for “the industry as a whole”, just for their jobs.
*EDIT, should add: grandparents were in silent movies and operetta, and my mom was not terribly successful. So no advantages business-wise. Plenty culture-wise, though.
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Came for this. He’s always the first example of the privilege/nepotism advantage that comes to mind when people say nobody’s getting work despite lack of talent. Maybe it’s because he seemed to show up too often in the '90s. 
Of course, comedy is subjective, but there are plenty of actors with questionable talent starring in sexist and “delayed development” sub-genres that don’t appeal to me at all, and they keep making more despite bad reviews. It’s even more noticeable when they pair these folks up with much better actors. To me, it’s more sad than funny.
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It’s not so much that nepotism is exists - but that it’s reached the level to shut out anyone without a family connection or money. I think I saw a stat recently that it went from 60% not having family connections 30 years ago to 20% now.
This will also, of course; affect the type of projects that happen and what their subjects are.
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Interesting. Maybe also helps explain why so many “normal” characters live in such huge houses.
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And why there are so few films about them.
Now everyone is a superhero, a god, a king etc. not many working class movies made. Because not many making films now were ever working class.
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Let’s not overgeneralize here based on the success of a few stars. There are a TON of blue-collar folks in the film industry. Most of it is far less glamorous than many people realize, and for everyone you see on screen there’s an army of set dressers, carpenters, lighting grips, editors, production assistants, etc. Even most working actors get very modest salaries. The average SAG member only makes somewhere around $52k/year (according to a couple different sources like The Hollywood Reporter, anyway. There’s a wide range of estimates out there.)
It would certainly be better if more TV shows and movies really showed realistic depictions of regular people, but that’s not entirely a new problem. The “golden age” of Hollywood had a lot of movies following the exploits of very wealthy characters.
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Those folks probably don’t have much of a say in what films get made. The story is about marquee actors, directors and producer level jobs.
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Very true. To give one example, we haven’t seen the likes of this movie series on a long time.
The writers, performers, and some of the directors and producers grew up poor or working poor. While there are post-80s movies that focus on working class people, even the good ones are to a certain extent a form of poverty tourism on the part of their creators.
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