Camila Morrone is very pretty but, unfortunately for Everybody Loves Daisy Jones, she has one of the clearest-faced iPhone cases. In fact, that is not enough. She has the face of knowing what TikTok is ”. That tweet from the user @soundofmetal referring to the cast of the Amazon Prime series reopened a debate that has been going on for a few years: if some performers have too modern a face, that is, they have the face of knowing what an iPhone is, like to be believable in period roles. Although the time is as close as the 1970s and 1990s, during which Everybody Loves Daisy Jones takes place.
The term iPhone face is believed to have originated in 2019, around the time the first trailer for The King, a Netflix drama starring Timothée Chalamet and Lily-Rose Depp set in 15th-century England, appeared. Later, it circulated again when it was confirmed that Florence Pugh would be Amy in Greta Gerwig's Little Women, and it was used again to lament that Dakota Johnson was the protagonist of Persuasion that Netflix released a few months ago. "I'm sorry to announce that Dakota Johnson, as I feared, has the face of knowing what a cell phone is," wrote a librarian tweeter who did not quite fit the daughter of Melanie Griffith in the universe of Jane Austen. On the other hand, in networks there is quite a consensus around the idea that Bella Ramsey (who has played period roles in Game of Thrones and The Catherine Book) and Anya Taylor Joy seem to have landed in 2023 from another century.
Why does the viewer accept without much problem that Judi Dench or Kate Winslet can live in Victorian England, Nazi Germany or the United States of the Great Depression and instead find it hard to believe Timothée Chalamet as Henry V? There are several factors intersecting. On the one hand, Chalamet and Depp are, and were even more so in 2019, very generational icons (well known in their age group, less so in others), and their lives off the screens, in fashion shows, campaigns and Stolen photos (such as the famous series in which they kissed on a yacht) have had as much or more weight when it comes to consolidating their image than their work on the screen, especially in the case of the daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. There are more photos of him posing with the Getty watermark or drinking espresso martini on terraces than film stills.
But another variant also intervenes in the matter of the iPhone face: the generalization of injectable beauty treatments, botox or the so-called fillers (cosmetic fillers, often with hyaluronic acid and vitamins) would have given rise to faces that are too contemporary, faces that truly could not exist in a decade that was not this one, with noses retouched with injections (rhinoplasty is not so frequent anymore), padded cheekbones after a certain age and very smooth foreheads. Phrases like “mid-twenties is a good time to start injecting fillers” can be read on thousands of pages, including some with such reputable names as The Healthy Journal, dedicated to self-care and lifestyle. And in the entertainment industry its use has been widespread for a decade.
According to Juan León, a veteran casting director who has precisely worked on many productions set in the past (Isabel, La Catedral del Mar, Carlos, Rey Emperador), “injectables give a very uniform expression or almost no expression. This sings a lot in time. Actors and actresses who do retouching usually close the way to period productions, unless they are a fantasy, Red Eagle type ”. He does not believe, however, that there is an iPhone face, rather a type of acting, in a way of interpreting, that is too contemporary. “In period productions, articulation also tends to matter a lot. Today you are not very demanding with the articulation and that in a historical film can stand out for the worse ”, he also points out.
“When you make period productions, there is a lot of freedom, precisely because there are no references. There are actors who smell it better than others. It tends to have to do with actors who have worked with the classics –which is why British actors are generally preferred in Hollywood productions, generally with more theatrical training, but also with less perfect teeth– because that way they achieve more poise and more shine in these roles. So you can bring in a slightly more contemporary actor and the other pulls him”, says León. There is a trend, he says, that is also reaching Spanish productions towards more daring casts in historical films and series, and not only because of the so-called blind castings (such as Los Bridgertons, in which the interpreter's skin color has no why fit historically with the character), but also seeking a certain surprise from the viewer.
He has been about to cast Belén Barenys, the co-creator of the Self-Defense series and a member of Rigoberta Bandini's choir, in a period production. In the end it could not be for logistical reasons. León also highlights the commitment to choose Michelle Jenner, then closely linked to her adolescent idol image, to play Queen Isabella the Catholic. “It gave an unexpected dimension to the series.”
In many cases, what viewers judge to be the face of iPhone is not a casting error but a creative decision, successful or not, such as the choice of Dakota Johnson for a very particular Persuasion, which had intentional anachronistic details in the style of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, and a wardrobe far removed from what we are used to seeing in adaptations of the Regency period.
The casting directors consulted highlight two things: that the characterization does everything and that too many retouching limits instead of expanding the possibilities of work for the interpreters. "You put a habit on Ana de Armas, or the sexiest girl in the world, and you see a nun," says Cristina Campos, a writer (finalist for the latest Planeta Award) and casting director who has also worked on various historical productions. like Letter to Eva, by Agustí Villaronga, The heirs of the earth or The year of the deluge, where he precisely dressed Fanny Ardant as a nun. “If the interpreters listened to the conversations that I have with the directors, they would not be operated on,” says Campos. “If they ask me for a 50-year-old woman, they don't expect her to look like she's 40, and even less so in the 18th century. They have even told me: 'Not this one, that she has Botox'. Those who do it arouse a lot of tenderness in me, but I would not advise it ”.
According to Silvia Menéndez Cahue, another casting director who works mainly in advertising, the reason why many American shoots are made in Europe, and specifically in Spain, also has to do with that (in addition to aid and tax exemptions). . “I work with many Americans because they cannot find a person over 40 without retouching there. The problem is when the morphology of the face is changed. The lips, the cheekbones, with a very contemporary aspect. If you haven't touched anything, anyone is worth a historical production. Makeup does it all."
Faced with this, there is the real coercion felt by actors, and especially actresses, to maintain an aspect of "eternally naive girl", as Patricia Arquette defined in an interview in December. "There's a lot of pressure to look like that." She, she said in the same interview on Page Six, still hasn't had anything done at 54, but she added: "This is my face and if I decide to have a facelift tomorrow, I'm going to do it."
