A return sitting at the Downtown Los Angeles studio, and the case for every actor owning a villain.
Chauncey Alan has played Caesar. This time he came back to the Los Angeles studio wanting to be Cassius.
Not literally, but the brief was close. Chauncey needed a villainous headshot for his castings: one image that tells a casting director, in the half-second a thumbnail gets, that he can be trusted with the man nobody should trust. Shakespeare gave Caesar the line that describes exactly what we were after: “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”
Chauncey Alan: A Lean and Hungry Look (Actors Headshots Los Angeles, Rory Lewis)
Chauncey was born in Rome and works between Rome and Los Angeles, holding both Italian and American citizenship. He trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute, then at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, with the RSC, and at the American University of Paris, and was awarded the Johnny Depp Acting Scholarship. He is native in English and Italian, works in French, Spanish and Catalan, and moves between dialects from Calabrian to Brooklyn to Texan. He specialises in action and martial arts, and stands six foot five. His credits run from the title role in Julius Caesar to the feature L’Homme au Piano, the lead in the audio drama John Doe – The Night Lennon Died, and a campaign for Hendrick’s Gin. An actor with that range doesn’t need one headshot. He needs several, each doing one job well.
The villain is the hardest of those jobs to photograph, because menace in a portrait is almost never a scowl. Look at Antonello da Messina’s Condottiero in the Louvre, the mercenary captain with the scarred lip and a gaze that has already taken your measure. Or Santi di Tito’s Machiavelli, whose thin, closed mouth belongs to a man who knows more than he is saying. Or Bronzino’s young Florentines, regarding the viewer from beneath a lifted brow with a coolness that borders on contempt. The danger in these faces is restraint. They are calculating, not raging.
That was the register for Chauncey. His head tips to one side, the chin pushed forward, so the long line of his neck pulls into a taut diagonal and the tension is built into the composition before the face does any work. One brow draws down while the other lifts. The mouth is pressed and pushed to the side, as if he is tasting something he doesn’t think much of. The blue-green eyes sit level with the lens. He isn’t threatening you; he is appraising you and finding you wanting, which is far more unsettling.
Everything else was chosen to support that. The wardrobe is a black knit with a raw, fraying collar, a garment that looks as if it has been through something and suggests the man has too. The ground is a cool slate blue, brought up to a pale bloom behind the head so the dark, swept-up hair separates cleanly before the edges fall away to near-black. The skin keeps its sheen rather than being powdered matte, so the light catches the brow, the cheekbone and the cords of the neck. On a leading man I would soften all of this. On a villain, you want the viewer slightly uneasy without knowing why.
My thanks to Chauncey for coming back to the studio. I look forward to seeing which scoundrels this one lands him.
Why every working actor needs a villain
Casting directors scroll through hundreds of thumbnails per role, and they cast type before they cast talent. A headshot that tries to be warm, dangerous, funny and commercial all at once reads as none of them at thumbnail size. The actors who book consistently carry a small set of images, each with a single job: the commercial smile, the theatrical lead, and the heavy. Antagonists are some of the richest parts in film and television, but a casting office can’t imagine you in one if your only headshot is grinning.
That’s why sittings at the Los Angeles studio are built around several looks rather than one.
Book an LA headshot sitting
Downtown Los Angeles studio, 411 S Main Street, fully studio-lit, so every look is controlled precisely
Around two hours, with three or more looks, mixing and matching from three to four tops: leading, commercial and, if your casting calls for it, the villain
Grooming can be arranged for the session
A proof gallery within a few days, from which you choose your frames for standard or master retouching
High-resolution files ready for casting profiles, print and press
Not an actor? The same light serves executives, founders and professionals; corporate and leadership headshots are booked the same way