That was way harsh, Tai. It’s just been revealed that Alicia Silverstone auditioned for the lead role in the teenage drama series, My So-Called Life, but she lost the part because of her good looks. Marshall Herskovitz, the show’s co-executive producer, said he was impressed with Silverstone’s acting chops but couldn’t get past the fact that she was “too pretty” to play the character.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Herskovitz argued that Claire Danes was the perfect fit to play Angela Chase for a laundry list of reasons.
“Alicia is so beautiful that that would have affected her experience of the world,” he told the mag. “People would have been telling her she was beautiful since she was six years old. You can’t put that face in what’s been written for this girl.” So what exactly is Herskovitz saying about Danes’ appearance? To be fair, he didn’t exactly bash her looks. Winnie Holzman, the series creator, echoed Herskovitz’s thoughts and also explained that he was enchanted by much more than just her beauty.
According to Holzman, Danes was “sexy and not sexy, free and bound up, open and closed, funny and frighteningly serious.”
And despite Silverstone being “emancipated” at the time—meaning she could work longer hours than the 13-year-old Danes who was up for the part—Holzman ultimately decided to rework the script around Danes’ limitations.
Danes also spoke to the magazine about how important taking on that project was for her personal and professional life. “I remember being so relieved that I had an opportunity to voice my complaints about my time at school so perfectly and so eloquently, with the right amount of rage and humor,” Danes said. “Angela and I were the same age so we could dance around each other. Sometimes I would have an experience and then it would be articulated on the show. Other times, I would play it out, then experience it personally later.” But it wasn’t all a wash for Silverstone, either. She rose to fame in the nineties with the hit flick Clueless, where she starred as the Beverly Hills beauty Cher Horowitz.
