FRESH TALENT PAY - OFF

Over the last couple of years, a new trend seems to have seeped into the money-making wisdom of moviedom. An unusual number of fresh faces have made the cash flow in for producers and directors who were (with hindsight) wise enough to bet on unexploited and unproven talent.

Michael Winterbottom’s casting of Stephen Dillane in Welcome to Sarajevo meant that he had a hero without any past references or contexts to distract the audience from his role as a reporter in the horrifying environment of war-torn Bosnia. There was no way of knowing what the outcome of this young man’s experiences would be because here was a fresh actor without a movie history. Thus the choice of actor only served to make the film more taut and gritty. In a similar vein Steven Spielberg’s choice of newcomer Djimon Hounsou in his much hyped Amistad helped to give a fresh angle on the much battered subject of racialism and violence. The plot and character twists of L.A. Confidential were even more surprising and unpredictable, since audiences knew very little about Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. Even Matt Damon is sufficiently new for his performances in Good Will Hunting and John Grisham’s The Rainmaker to have a fresh-faced appeal about them.

Last year's bet on relative newcomer Renee Zellwegger paid off. Jerry Maguire went on to become a smash hit, and Renee’s performance opposite Tom Cruise introduced her to the big league within the space of a few months. While the Danish art film, Breaking the Waves, brought the English Emily Watson an Oscar nomination. Watson is even now an unknown face for most American moviegoers, a situation which may change with the forthcoming The Boxer in which Emily stars opposite Daniel Day-Lewis.

The list goes on. The Full Monty became a surprise independent movie hit, starring Mark Addy and Robert Carlyle of the UK, while Jude Law drew attention to himself with his performances in Gattaca and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The trend of increasingly betting on young faces apparently applies to art house as well as mainstream movies. One of the reasons could be that young people are the main target audience of movie makers, and young audiences have displayed an increasing desire to see actors of their own age as seen by the success of films like Scream 2 and Selena. Even James Cameron’s Titanic cashes in on this trend by portraying a romance between a barely-adult boy and girl, played by the relatively fresh-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Of course, the demand for young faces necessarily means that younger actors have to be hired. Enter the fresh faced legion comprising Matt Damon, Alicia Silverstone (Copycat, Batman and Robin), Cate Blanchett (Oscar and Lucinda), Jennifer Lopez (Selena) and many more who have succeeded in making waves. In fact Alicia Silverstone made waves on the strength of Copycat, even before donning a batsuit when Warner Bros offered the 18-year old a $10 million production contract.

Secondly, recent experience has proved to industry players that big stars with hefty salaries do not necessarily guarantee returns. Witness Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford in The Devil’s Own and Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet. While in the good old days of the 40s and 50s studios used major stars for three or four movies a year, now bigger money means higher stakes and fewer films with big stars. In such a context it is safer to commit less money to new talent, rather than fork out huge payments to big stars.

If fresh talent seems to pay off for the studios, it is also a pay off for audiences. Filmgoers have obviously expressed their preference for new faces, and who knows, the new talent of today could well be award winning stars of tomorrow.