February 28, 2014

Commodification of labor: movie star division

Since movie and TV star salaries spiked back in the 1990s, entertainment companies have been working hard to tip the balance of power back toward the owners of intellectual property (themselves) by emphasizing superhero characters rather than star power. A few actors in superhero franchises, most notably Robert Downey Jr., have been able to maintain enough leverage to cash in royally. Yet, Downey's take from playing Iron Man in the vastly successful The Avengers -- supposedly $50 million -- was roughly what Jack Nicholson is said to have earned for playing the Joker in Batman way back in 1989.

Here's an article on all the movie star hopefuls who workout at Gold's Gym at Venice Beach:
Almost any actor, even some of Hollywood’s most scrawny, can be physically transformed for the part if he’s willing to put in the hard work. The studios know this, which is why any inexpensive unknown can be chosen. ...
For last summer’s megahit “Man of Steel,” Snyder sent Cavill to work out with Twight. “I wanted Henry to be the personification of physicality,” Snyder told me. Cavill and Twight worked together for five months before production started and continued training during the six months of filming. Twight packed the pounds onto Cavill’s 6-foot-1 frame by putting him on a 5,000-calorie-a-day diet. Leading up to Cavill’s two shirtless sequences — a few days at the beginning of October 2011 and about six days at the end of that month — Twight scaled Cavill’s caloric intake back to about 2,800 calories. According to Twight, the pressure on Cavill was intense: “Henry was not a well-known guy, and he had chosen to be one of greatest comic-book icons ever. You’re not going to give that guy an inch.”

The whole physical transformation process is also part of the promotional campaign for the movies. That was part of Sylvester Stallone's brilliance in the 1970s-1980s to tap into this previously inchoate longing on the part of the audience that that the early 20th Century German poet Rilke (who has become a posthumous self-help guru) summarized as: "You must change your life."
A number of trainers and actors told me that steroids were out there and that everybody had a good idea of who was on them — though nobody is willing to name names. But as trainers like Twight make obvious, the Hollywood fitness mechanism is brutal and advanced enough to make any performance-enhancing drug seem primitive by comparison. “Post-‘300,’ there is a machine in place — it doesn’t work for everyone, though,” Twight said. “Not everybody can handle the training.”

Uh, that's what the steroids are for -- to speed recovery times to allow more lifting. 

I'm interested in learning more about the opposite process than adding all that muscle: the guys who went back to being normal. For example, in 2009 I ran into Jake Gyllenhaal at the frozen yogurt stand and he looked kind of silly all pumped up for his 2010 Prince of Persia starring role, but wearing normal Dockers-type clothes instead of a loincloth or whatever is more fitting for that level of musculature. But the next movie I saw him in, 2011's sci-fi Source Code, he looked reasonable again.

Presumably, if Prince of Persia hadn't bombed, he'd still be beefcaked up. Now, he's kind of gaunt for his next role.

Here's something that I can't recall male stars talking about: what it's like to be different shapes. How does it affect how you think? How does it affect your moods? By this point, Christian Bale, say, has a lot of data points on what it's like to be muscular, emaciated, pudgy, etcetera. But there isn't much public interest in that, but there is intense interest in the process of changing body shape.

On the female side, there is a slight bit more freedom for actresses to complain about the ferocious diets they have to maintain (but not to go off them). I can recall about a decade ago that Sandra Bullock's management issued a press release saying that she had decided to not starve herself anymore just to get roles. But, judging by her late-in-career Oscar success in Gravity and The Blind Side, she changed her mind.
  

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve:"The whole physical transformation process is also part of the promotional campaign for the movies. That was part of Sylvester Stallone's brilliance in the 1970s-1980s to tap into this previously inchoate longing on the part of the audience that that the early 20th Century German poet Rilke (who has become a posthumous self-help guru) summarized as: "You must change your life.""

Yeah, it's fascinating to observe the evolution in Stallone's physique from ROCKY to ROCKY III. In ROCKY, he basically looks like a guy at the local gym who takes his training seriously. By ROCKY III, though, we are in a different realm. This is a guy who is clearly using chemicals, whose diet is carefully regulated, etc.


"But as trainers like Twight make obvious, the Hollywood fitness mechanism is brutal and advanced enough to make any performance-enhancing drug seem primitive by comparison."

This guy is either really naive or lying.Not quite sure which.

Shouting Thomas said...

I used to think acting was a very difficult skill.

Then I got involved in video via my work in multimedia. This lead to working with many very talented actors in their corporate video and commercial stints.

Acting is a skill that anybody can learn. Just takes practice and the courage to get out there and find some places to work.

We worked on a concept of scarcity in the pre-digital age. In the digital age it was long ago apparent that the era of scarcity is over.

Sequester Grundelplith said...

Nobody knows what male stars think about the transformations their bodies go through because no one asks them, because no one seems to care what men think about their bodies.

Although it's probably true that a woman's self-image, mood, etc. depend upon her physicality to a greater extent than do a man's, contemporary culture's apparent assumption that a man's psyche is pristinely uninfluenced by changes in his body (men being privileged, doncha know) seems pretty clearly wrong.

Exception, as always, for gay men, whose body image struggles of course deserve our acknowledgement and sympathy.

Anonymous said...

RE:the mind-body interface,

Yeah, that does seem to be something that goes unreported. Do male stars who are on a muscle building regimen feel more confident, more virile? Does weight gain for a part cause depression? Offhand, the only time that I can recall an actor addressing the issue was Sean Astin; he talked about the feeling of lethargy, both physical and mental, that gaining weight for LOTR engendered.

Anonymous said...

Arno Brekerization of Hollywood.

Original superheroes didn't look so brawny. Now, they've all been Conan-the-Barbarianized.

Anonymous said...

"Here's something that I can't recall male stars talking about: what it's like to be different shapes. How does it affect how you think? How does it affect your moods? ""



In his 2006 book, former MLBer Jose Canseco mentions how steroids can affect your mood; namely, how they can increase your level of confidence. He likened the psychological aspects one derives from steroids to drinking an energy drink. After imbibing the latest health drink, one allegedly feels better.

To Canseco, the mental effects derived from steroids and continual usage was enormous and he claimed that regular users would believe that they could do anything.

So, while the NYT doesnt address this aspect of PEDS usage it should be noted that athletes such as Canseco have gone on the record to comment that there is a mental or increased level of confidence to be found while taking steroids.

I was reminded of his (still relevant) book while reading thru this current post.

albert magnus said...

I think about 85% of True Detective's appeal is that everyone is memorized how skinny Matthew McConaughey is.

reiner Tor said...

Just a personal experience. I started lifting some weights, and I became a little bit more muscular. I'm still not muscular, at most average (I used to be extremely skinny), but I immediately started to feel more confident in just about all walks of life. Like flirting with women. Talking to my boss. Speaking at a company meeting. Having a beer with some acquaintances. Etc.

Now, I had an injury. (Actually RSI caused by computer/mouse usage, but prevented me from training anyway. It was worse than an injury because it took almost two years before I could find out what was causing the pain, and even longer to find out how to get rid of it while keeping to use the mouse.) The whole process in reverse. I became less self-confident. And finally, I started training again. Just the knowledge that I can say deadlift 130kg (286lbs) means that I feel a lot lot lot more confident than when I could do nothing like that.

Harry Baldwin said...

I think about 85% of True Detective's appeal is that everyone is memorized how skinny Matthew McConaughey is.

The other 15% being how un-skinny Alexandra Daddario is?

Dave Pinsen said...

You feel different if you do full body barbell exercises such as deadlifts, squats, and standing overhead presses than you will if you just do isolation type exercises. Partly because squats in particular generate hormonal responses, and partly because all of those exercises work your trunk (the muscles that stabilize your spine, etc.), so that literally affects the way you carry yourself.

Crawfurdmuir said...

"Here's something that I can't recall male stars talking about: what it's like to be different shapes. How does it affect how you think? How does it affect your moods? "

In less speculative terms, just imagine what it does to your wardrobe. I'm not referring to costumes worn while portraying a character in the movies - just to the normal clothes one wears while being one's own self, which is most of the time even for a busy actor. How much more money - and even closet space - does it take to have separate clothes for when one is "muscular, emaciated, pudgy, etcetera"?

Most normal people arrive at a point at which their diet and physical activity are such as to enable them to maintain a reasonably constant weight and physique. Such people can buy and wear clothes until they wear out, if they wish.

I wonder whether the lack of ability to do this has something to do with the bizarre dress sense exhibited by male actors nowadays, as compared with the classically stylish clothing one associates with stars of past decades, e.g., Laurence Olivier, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, or Cary Grant (all, I believe, customers of Anderson & Sheppard, No. 30, Savile Row, London W1).

One cannot do business with a bespoke tailor if one's weight fluctuates wildly. A new pattern would have to be made every time one ordered. The simple impracticality of this may explain the tendency of the current crop of male stars to buy something flashy and trendy off the rack, rather than placing themselves in the hands of a Savile Row firm that knows how to make them look like gentlemen.

anony-mouse said...

So how did Philip Seymour Hoffman stay in the movies?

And isn't heroin supposed to make you thin?

Anonymous said...

Almost any actor, even some of Hollywood’s most scrawny, can be physically transformed for the part if he’s willing to put in the hard work.


And take the juice. For some reason they don't mention that part.

Anonymous said...

Actually it won't be long before actors are superfluous. They can already make somewhat lifelike "people" in CGI, and the technology is only improving.

Reg Cæsar said...

When the roles require you to be naked, at several times life-sizw, you'd damn well better starve yourself.

Men getting naked isn't a draw, it's a threat.

jody said...

no way on earth jack nicholson was paid 50 million dollars in 1989 for 1 movie.

for terminator 2, arnold was paid the then record of about 30 million. and that was 1991.

i do agree with the general idea that actor salaries have plateaued at about 20 million per movie for the biggest names. they've been around that level for 20 years now. the only change has been contracts for percentages, or points as they say in the industry.

funny effects: when the wachowski brothers were producing the matrix sequels, actor marcus chong, who played a supporting character in the original matrix, asked for 500 grand to do both sequels. the wachowskis offered 250. when chong balked, they wrote his character out of the movies.

they then turned around and gave keanu reeves 15 percent of the revenues from the matrix sequels, which turned out to be worth about 250 million dollars.

Cail Corishev said...

Original superheroes didn't look so brawny. Now, they've all been Conan-the-Barbarianized.

I watched the pilot of the 1978 Incredible Hulk the other day. Lou Ferrigno looked tiny.

Anonymous said...

Nietzsche was very interesting on the connection between physiology and mental states. I've always been amazed how seemingly fast actors can grow their hair out. It would've taken me years to get that long of hair. Maybe they use wigs, I don't know.

Anonymous said...

...muscular, emaciated, pudgy, etcetera... On the female side...

Speaking of pudgy, did you see what Charlize Theron did to herself for Monster?

BB753 said...

Hard to believe you can abuse steroids to bulk up in six months and that it won't affect your health. It's the side of the story I find most interesting.

Whiskey said...

Except Steve, efforts to use just a placeholder roided up trained up leading man have consistently failed:

John Carter's Taylor Kitsch did not click with audiences, lacking charisma and having only TV guest star skills, resulting in a legendary failure.

Same with Brian Singer's "Superman Returns" with Brandon Routh, the latter disappearing as a long term guest star on TV's "Chuck."

You saw this with Charlie Humnan from Sons of Anarchy failing to move audiences in "Pacific Rim" or Henry Cavill in the latest Superman movie.

MEANWHILE, not just Robert Downey Jr, but Scarlett Johanssen, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth and their ability to connect with audiences, called charisma, is behind Marvel's success after years of big time floparoos: Ben Affleck's Daredevil, Jennifer Garner's Elektra, a rotating cast of Punishers, the non-presence of the Fantastic Four cast save Evans, etc.

Shouting Thomas is wrong. Acting in big-time movies requires special skill, though studios like to think it doesn't. Getting people to plunk down $12 or more, and about $15 or so for a DVD, requires an ability to make a character not just likeable but one the audience roots for. This is pretty rare. Robert Downey Jr, a motivated Liam Neeson, that's about it for movie actors in action roles.

If just a beefed up actor were all that would be required, we'd be seeing John Carter II, III, and IV by now. Brandon Routh would still be Superman. It isn't ... real charisma and likeability are just very, very rare.

Dave Pinsen said...

Taylor Kitsch did a decent job in Savages and in Battleship.

Mr. Anon said...

This is one reason why I pretty much hate modern movies and television. Back in the 70s, people on screen looked like normal people; now they look like the products of some kind of eugenics experiment. Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, George Segal, Diane Keaton, Stockard Channing - they were big stars in the 70s - they wouldn't even get a call back now.

Anonymous said...

The trainer, Mark Twight, is famous for his extreme alpinism in the 90s.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twight
I could certainly believe his training regime will get clients ripped in short order.

Harry Baldwin said...

Anonymous jody said...no way on earth jack nicholson was paid 50 million dollars in 1989 for 1 movie.

Sorry. . .

"Jack Nicholson also set a record for his role as the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman in 1989. He used his star power to negotiate a lucrative deal for a percentage of the movie's gross earnings, which earned him $60 million cumulatively."

Anonymous said...

a motivated Liam Neeson

Neeson is one of the stranger action heroes of recent years. He's 60-something, for cryin' out loud, and he's still anchoring the "Taken" franchise.

Costner seems to be trying on a similar career arc in the latest McG film. (McG has got an eye but lacks a brain.)

Anonymous said...

CGI looks extremely realistic now, yes (some of the background scenery in 'Brave' is stunningly lifelike), but the there's something off about the movements of things. They can never get it quite right, especially when shit's flying around and blowing up.

'Die Hard 4' was some of the worst I've ever seen. I miss the 80's ...

DR said...

"But as trainers like Twight make obvious, the Hollywood fitness mechanism is brutal and advanced enough to make any performance-enhancing drug seem primitive by comparison. "

Anyone who lifts or trains seriously seriously knows this is BS. In order of importance the most important factors are:

1) Drugs
2) Genetics
3) Nutrition
4) Training

An insane training regime yields very little marginal benefit over a basic one. Especially if the trainee is undrugged. There's no training regime that can outcompete even a basic and light steroid cycle. There are numerous studies that show that steroid users who don't even exercise put on more muscle than even the most extreme undrugged training regimes.

The flip side is that the modern science of steroids has gotten so good that virtually anyone with a heavy cycle can get extremely jacked in short order. Just spend 13 weeks bulking with EQ+Test+Masterone, then 13 weeks cut with Clen+T3+Test. Even the scrawniest weakling will look pretty close to Schwarzenegger after 6 months.

Anonymous said...

"Just a personal experience...but I immediately started to feel more confident in just about all walks of life."

yup


"and partly because all of those exercises work your trunk (the muscles that stabilize your spine, etc.), so that literally affects the way you carry yourself."

yup

physical game. some guys bulk up because they think big muscles appeal to women but in reality it's the confidence gain that appeals to women.

Anonymous said...

Henry Cavill failed to connect with audiences? Uhh, ok.

Anonymous said...

John C. Reilly, for example ... ugly as a bullfrog, but charisma to burn. And funny as hell, too. (Google 'Steve Brule'.)

Kristen Stewart OTOH - absolutely gorgeous girl, all the charm and talent of a walnut.

Anonymous said...

"Neeson is one of the stranger action heroes of recent years."

Neeson is just taking all the roles that a semi-retired Harrison Ford has been passing on for the last decade.

His new flick 'Non-stop' in fact looks a-lot like 'Air Force One' (Tough middle-aged White guy fighting baddies on an airplane)

jody said...

"Jack Nicholson also set a record for his role as the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman in 1989. He used his star power to negotiate a lucrative deal for a percentage of the movie's gross earnings, which earned him $60 million cumulatively."

so like i said, he wasn't paid 50 million dollars. he was given points.

no actor was paid 50 million dollars for 1 movie until the 00s.

jody said...

DR, what are you talking about. i hope that post wasn't serious.

Anonymous said...

Kristen Stewart OTOH - absolutely gorgeous girl, all the charm and talent of a walnut.


If you think that Stewart is "absolutely gorgeous" you might want to cut back on all the extra testosterone you're taking.

Anonymous said...

There are a lot of absolutely gorgeous girls in Hollywood; it's fairly common. The reason she popped into my mind, though is because the name 'Twight' kept appearing in this thread.

Twilight/Twight ... it's a subconscious thing, see. (And yes, that expressionless little bitch is absolutely gorgeous IMO.)

Anonymous said...

Whiskey - "Scarlett Johanssen .... Chris Hemsworth ... connect ... charisma".

Uh huh. Sure they do. That's why Scarlett Johanssen generally plays cold, distant women, and why Chris Hemsworth is a naturally charismatic megastar outside Thor.

Anonymous said...

Stewart is a decidedly average looking young woman. By the standards of 23 year-old women in Hollywood she could even be called "plain".

For a lot of guys the thinking about women and attractiveness seems to run "I'd do her, therefore she's super-hot QED".

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