What Does It Take?

How Far Will Good Looks Take You? Will Personality or Talent Take You Farther? An intersting subject that came up in a conversation between my friends & I. I thought it was buzz worthy to do piece on because there was really no winner over the debate. We were talking about what it takes to be an actor these days. There was really two sides to the debate. Good Looks against the Personality & Talents. It used to be back in the 1980's & early 1990's nomatter where you live HK, Australia, UK, Canada, US... if you had the look, you had management companies coming after you. But in recent years some of the most sucessful actors to rise to the top have been less than attractive. I saw a special on "E!" saying people who generally already moved into their 30's stopped caring about looks, movie & tv viewers at that age & older usually prefer to see people they can relate to. It was a little hard to understand at first but I finally got it. My opinion on this is that Good Looks CAN take you far, however personality & talents MIGHT take you farther. And if you have more than one of the above you have a slight advantage. People without talents believe or not do make it to the top, for example Paris Hilton, not much to say about her except if partying is a talent she is set for life, which she is by the way regardless. But if you're good looking but you absolutely CANT act if your life depended on it, then I guess modeling is the other alternative route. Lets see who are examples of actors who necessarily aren't the best looking but manage to make their to the top. The Talents: Bowie Lam: hmmm... Bowie isnt exactly eye candy, but his talents definitely took him to the top. A couple years back he was running into some donkey years where his career & poularity was flat until WAB tok off. People really started to notice his acting talents. In my mind he's an example when talents prevail. Lawrence Ng: What do you guys think of Lawrence Ng? I honestly dont remeber one series where he wasn't the lead male. I guess his acting talents is deniable but once again he is another actor who rose to the top without good looks. Lawrence to me looks like someone who fix computers for living, strangely I always thought he looks like my dentist. In some of his early series he looked more pale & skinny then some of the actress he was opposite of. But somehow he gets paired up with some prettiest actresses in TV series history like Ada Choi, Gigi Lai, Charmaine Sheh, Yoyo Mung.... He had good chemistry with some of them but some fell flat. Both A Huge Personality & Talents: Mr. Charming #1-Bobby Au-Yeung: I always have enjoyed watching Bobby's series. He is an excellent actor with tons of charisma & a glowing personality. He can do both dramas & comedies, its pretty easy to understand why his series always gets high ratings in HK. I think he was destined to be at the top. Mr. Charming #2-Wong Hei: No fancy or striking english name needed, Wong Hei is our Mr. Charming #2. This guy is a terrific actor & he also has a extremely fun personality. He's also very adventurous & daring. Back then I didn't find him attractive because people always said his eyes are perfect example of when an actor needs double eye lid surgery, Wong Hei really just looks like a common guys at a mall. There were a couple of series where you might remember seeing him going through some acne problems, but he still shooked it off. After a while I found that eyes are really cute, & his personality really overshadowed everything else. I absolutely love to see Wong hei in series now. More of Good Looking, The Females Counterparts Later... Stay Tuned...