Beauty

Judi Dench

Queen Latifah

Bjork

I watched one of those CNN flahdy-floos a few months back which was about a professor at Columbia who believed he has written an equation for beauty. The man quite literally has a diagram which when set upon the photograph of a human face he can say if they will make money in the modeling business or not. He can predict how far they will go or what type of work they will be able to do based on this mathematical diagram. I say, what the hell does he think he is talking about. He has no idea what beauty is or how to define it.
Right now I am working on a scene in Acting II which deals with the theme of beauty and who and how is responsible for saying what it is or who is. As a part of this scene, I have been given the challenge of playing a heartbreaker, long-legged, stops-men-in-their-tracks model with a bit more nerdy best friend. The girl playing the "smart, frumpy one" is freaking gorgeous. And she's sweet and adorable and everything wonderful. This has been a very difficult challenge for me. I like to think I have a fairly okay self-esteem--I mean I have my issues like everyone else but I think I'm a good person and all that, but apparently I do not have any belief in my own beauty.
It was shocking to me to realize how hard it was to hear other people called me beautiful. I was quite genuinely surprised when my director asked, "Why is this hard for you, Katie?" I said, "I have nothing in my own life to draw from." And his response was, "Why? I think you're very beautiful, Katie." He then continued to say that I am a good dresser, I have good hair, a pretty smile, which inspired a cacophony of more compliments from the rest of the class (as this is a class discussion style feedback session) where even MORE people told me, "Oh yeah, you smell good, always look good, you have a great personal style" etc. etc. First of all, hearing comments like that at all struck me . . . in a very weird way. Second of all, hearing that from Chris Clark kind of meant the world to me. I respect him more than about 98% of the world's people--I mean, he's pretty high up there for me and today he took a good three minutes out of his day to tell me very sincerely he thinks I'm beautiful. Not just pretty, but beautiful. Even now, I tear up thinking about it. I've always tried to take compliments well but today I just . . . didn't know what to say. I don't hear that. Ever. Haven't since . . . Prom? Eleventh grade? That's three years ago. And everyone is supposed to look "beautiful" on Prom night. Duh. It's the rules. I don't hear it in that way, at least. I get "Cute sweater" comments and things like that which are so appreciated but today . . . today rocked my world. It almost made me care again. Care about . . . a lot of things. It came on a day when I needed to be told that I am beautiful. What a silly little word that our society puts so much meaning to--that I put so meaning to. But alas, who doesn't want to be told every now again, "Hey, you look good." I know it meant a lot to me today. So . . . I guess that's all I had to say. But, there you go. Also, above are a few pics of people I think are unconventially beautiful.