For what it’s worth I only just realized, as I was watching The Hobbit on DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever they have nowadays, that the guy who plays Bilbo is not the same person as the guy who plays The Master in Doctor Who, although he may be the same guy who plays Dr. Watson in Sherlock and all those guys in Simon Pegg movies who aren’t Simon Pegg. (For a while I thought he might also be the same guy who plays Moriarty (?) in Sherlock until I realized he was unlikely to be in twice.) (Although now I’ve started watching Orphan Black, I know that seeing actors in the same room together doesn’t necessarily count them out as being the same person.)
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By virtue of casting, it seems plausible that two random actors from the same era are more likely to resemble each other than two random human beings from another profession.
If you want to confuse yourself even more, consider that Gene Hackman turned down Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Close Encounters, Jaws, and Silence Of The Lambs
to quote Alex Pardee in The Secrets Of Hollywood
Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze are the same person.
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reminds me, I need to mention Fresh in the over-and-underrated films thread
an incredible film that never got its due.
I have no explanation for it, but when I was a kid I could not tell the difference between Paul Newman and Richard Dreyfuss.
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Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney?
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He’s like a Matryoshka that swears!
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Sure, but OTOH, it gets frustrating, at the very least, when people who aren’t black so often confuse the small numbers of black people they encounter for each other.
ETA: It’s almost like, you know, people are seeing the blackness before they see the individual.
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Maybe it was the shower cap.
When you see somebody, their skin color is the first thing you see. It takes much longer for their personality to make a lasting impression, especially when you’re seeing a version of them (i.e. a character they’re playing) that has little or nothing to do with their true personality.
Anyway, which person or people are you referring to who “so often” confuse one black person for another? It seems to happen relatively infrequently, at least judging by these sporadic video clips.
He seems to be the Entertainment reporter in Hollywood. Knowing the names and faces of major actors is his job. He also presumably knew he was going to be interviewing Samuel L. Jackson and could double check IMDB/google before the interview.
Long story short, guy probably doesn’t consciously hold racist views, but his inability to tell the difference between two major black actors is indicative of societal racism, and is a racist moment, even if you don’t want to label him a racist.
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I always got Gary Coleman and Gary Oldman confused.
Like, not visually, but when somebody mentioned Gary Oldman being excellent as Commissioner Gordon… well, let’s just say when I finally saw Batman Begins, I was very disappointed.
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I haven’t been diagnosed with face blindness, but I definitely have difficulty telling people apart by face. I mostly use other physical attributes that I can pick up on. Voices I’m generally good with but that doesn’t help if you haven’t heard them talking yet. Hair colour and length/style is a big help until they dye or cut it. Height, weight, build, clothes, and gait can all help. What makes white people generally easier for me to tell apart is more variety in hair colour.
To me, these are two entirely different people. I did a google image search for “Emma Stone red blonde” and had to double-check the article to make sure that it was the same person in both.
The only reason I can tell these two people apart by looking at them is Michael Shanks is wearing glasses (I’m told that they actually do look alike and they made him keep wearing glasses on Stargate SG-1 to make it easier to tell them apart).
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Michael Madsen, Michael Moriarity.
I had no idea Gene Hackman doesn’t like money. Weird.
And yet, one of the difficulties for law enforcement is that eyewitnesses who are white don’t actually see skin color well…as in, they are unable to distinguish between anything but the most basic generalizations. It becomes particularly obvious when they get confused and frustrated if they are unable to assign a race to someone they’ve seen because the person is ethnically mixed.
tl;dr…most white people see “black”, they don’t see skin color.
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Channing Tatum and Dakota Fanning.
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Ah, there we go. Back on topic!
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He has an amazing track record of refusing blockbuster scripts, but also picking minor roles or second rung movies and making them great. I don’t think that’s a strategy, but more a personal quirk.
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