Hi, and welcome back to Sophie’s Choice, where I give you my personal input on all
things casting! Today I’m going to be discussing probably one of my favourite topics and that’s whether or not you should go for your type cast or trying to get that character that doesn’t really resonate with you or that you’ve never played.
Type Cast
I’m going to be upfront, my choice is clearly DON’T GO FOR TYPE CAST, but that’s solely my opinion so if you're comfortable with going for type cast, do it.
So, let’s go over the pros of going for type cast first. It’s fun. It is so much fun. You can play with the character that you’ve done before way more because guess what? You’ve done it before and you can change the characteristics. Maybe slap on an accent or give them a limp. Play with it a little. If you’ve done it a bunch of times it’s easy for you to tap in and out of the character super fast, which is amazing. Having a type cast is also really good as you can always have something to fall back on. No stress.
On the other hand, I think it can get a bit repetitive if you don’t play with the character and give it different ways to differentiate and you can easily get them mixed up with other characters you’ve been in the past.
Different Cast
The biggest problem I have with type casting is that you’re not exploring yourself and your limits. You’re not giving the actor in you the opportunity to grow and find different things that you’re good at and that can be a straight up shame. That’s why I think going out of your way and trying to get cast for characters that aren’t in your reservoir already, you have a bigger chance to show off your skills. You get to show how big your range is or you get to practice to get to the range you always wanted. You get to be creative and explore the character. You get to find ways you could potentially understand the character and delve deeper into their personality. Why are they acting this way?
You get to understand another person's views and even practice being an empath for different reasons.
You get to decide whether or not this character suits you or if you’re comfortable with your type cast, but this is especially good when you’re new to acting and haven’t really found what kind of actor you want to be. It helps to challenge you and oftentimes help you search within yourself and realise things that going for type cast doesn’t. Of course there’s a downside. It’s time consuming and requires you to put more effort into the character sometimes, resulting in you having to do research for the intended purposes but you can have fun with it. You don’t have to restrict yourself in order to be good and I believe it’s better to reach beyond and challenge yourself, rather than place yourself in a bubble.
Sophie’s Choice
With all that being said, I actually haven’t had the chance to really step out of my own type cast for a while because I never got the opportunity to but you best believe that if I do, I’m jumping right into it head on and working hard to make it a completely different experience to what I’m used to because I don’t think it’s a bad thing to go for a type cast. Do what you’re comfortable with and if you’re not ready to take on a challenge straight away, easy into it. You don’t have to go from playing a villian to playing a hero. Take your time and do whatever you want to do. Most importantly, have fun with whatever you choose to do.
And that’s that on that!
Sophie out!