Throughout my adult life I have heard various comparisons to my physical likeness, most are quite flattering, and where one person sees one similarity another person doesn’t. In no particular order these are some of the famous people I’ve been told I’ve reminded people of…
- Marc Singer (around when BeastMaster came out on tape)
- Harrison Ford (by far I’ve heard this the most, for 20 years now, both voice and look)
- Patrick Swayze (way back when, and it’d usually come with, “around the eyes”)
- Liam Neeson/Ralph Fiennes (coming out of the theater after seeing “Schindler’s List” someone actually came up to me and said, “you look like if both of them had a baby”)
- Liev Schreiber (in recent years)..
There have been others as well, which one person or two have mentioned, which I totally don’t see at all (John Wayne, Tim Robbins, even John C. Reilly???) but really that’s not what I wanted to write about, I don’t really find that stuff too interesting, and honestly, when I’m in front of a casting director, and when that’s what they’re trying to come up with… I’d rather them just see me. Why is it we do that as a society? You can stop reading here if you just want to answer…
“Who do people say you remind them of…?”
But what I find more interesting are characters or traits that people say you remind them of, I have gotten Winnie The Pooh’s pal Eeyore many times. I have also understood the comparison that I’ve been linked to with Boxer from George 
Orwell’s Animal Farm, “I will work harder.” Muttley, the laughing dog, because of my laugh when I laugh so hard I can hardly breathe (caught on video below)… Sam The Sheepdog, I think because of my deep voice, work ethic, pace and protective nature. And recently I got even Baloo from The Jungle Book after someone heard me sing.
Some comparisons are silly, some are flattering, some are enlightening… if you want to end reading here, that’s cool too…
“Who do people say you remind them of, that it isn’t just about the structure of your face or coloring?”
Have you dug into these comparisons? Looked at what possibly has been written about them? Was there anything you could learn from them?
Eeyore is also very smart but he chooses to keep his knowledge to himself. And Eeyore is very capable of a lot of compassion which apparently he showed one time when he grew a plant that Rabbit was unable to grow just by showing it a lot of love.”I’ve also heard comparisons to the artist Auguste Rodin, writer Charles Bukowski, writer Honoré de Balzac, actor J.T. Walsh… All for differing reasons. Some I understand, some I just nod and say “thank you, I think.”
This past weekend yet another character was thrown into the mix… The Archangel Michael. And if you think that one’s as easy to swallow as say Liev Schreiber (don’t make that dirty), or as easy to comprehend as Boxer, it isn’t at all… First, there’s so many stories, and so much information, and varying views on him, from so many differing cultures… And when I asked my friend a day later why she brought that name up… She wrote: “Stop with the agitated silliness/resistance tom,” (Eeyore) and then she described the Archangel Michael, and pointed a specific article which was not only humongously flattering, but also quite intimidating… She ended her note to me simply with “YOU ARE AN ANGEL INCARNATE, TOM that’s just the way it is.”
Hmmm, for someone that over-analyzes and continually-questions… I’m still not what sure what… I’m not sure… Where the heck did I put my tail?
Well, it reminds me of an Uncle that has always believed I have more to share, a deeper self, a “more” inside of me… Which inspired the below Closet Singer episode years ago, questioning just that.
What was the point of this blog? It seems I have lost my through-line hunting images and posting links…
The truth is, I don’t know if I have a point, it’s more an observation. It’s more about self-discovery. Self-improvement. And examination of Self. And who gives a rat’s ass.
A few days ago I wrote a blog about my amazing friends, and one of the perks of having amazing friends is that we very often learn from them, and they almost always enlighten us in some way. As one friend put it… “You’re like blend between Harrison Ford, and a person that would ask questions like ‘would you rather kiss Reagan or a barnacle on a boat?’ You’re like the kid I wish I could have played with in the sandbox.”
Saying an actress reminds you of someone, or this person reminds you of an actor, is really only slightly below the surface if at all. A cartoon character, or historical figure, or actor that reminds people of your personality or essence is probably a little deeper. And, as I already eluded to with the “rat’s ass” comment, the actual truth is, NONE OF IT REALLY MATTERS. They’re all just games of sorts, and I’m pretty sure one of you out there can point me to a study that explains why we as humans have the need to familiarize others with things we know, or one of you have your own theory on why we do that.
No one will ever know all of us, and most people will only know part of us… It reminds me of the story of the blind men and the elephant… How not one person could agree what the elephant looked like, because they were all touching different parts of his body.
Enough with this examination through the perception of others… Too much is never a good thing… As the story of Narcissus so clearly demonstrates. “Yo Narci-baby, stop with all the self-portraits on your camera-phone and reading your own status updates and eat something will you?”
If you’ve made it this far… Feel free to answer anyone of the questions I’ve posed, as well as what I would like to see the most, and that is, WHAT (if anything) DID YOU LEARN from the comparisons that were made by others? Did it inform you? Did you benefit from the comparison? Was it just silly fun? Did you find it insulting?
- Quiche Out
I have never been told I look like anyone. I have been told I look like Jeri Ryan from the eyes up.
I guess it is kind of nice not to look like anyone else, then I don’t run into the issue of not being able to be ‘me’.
For years I was bummed because I would always remember people I had known or met in one context when I saw them later out of context: example: “You’re_____! You used to assist (an editor I knew) and you have a son named_____and you became an animation editor at Disney!” I exclaim as I’m introduced to a woman whom I’m told is our new music supervisor on a mini-series I am working on. She looks at me blankly with a nervous expression that communicates, “Who are you, my stalker?” and fails to remember me at all.
Compounding my feeling that I was not memorable: when I would be in a public place like a museum or a restaurant people would come up to me and exclaim, “Joanne!”
“Um, no, My name isn’t Joanne,” I’d reply.
“Yes it is!” they’d insist.
I felt bad because I assumed their mistake was a reflection on ME, that I must just look like everyone else.
Then I realized that I’m one of those folks who has an almost freakish memory for faces (it runs in my family. One of my father’s cousins has this same ability, I recently discovered.) Just because I can remember people out of context and recall the details I know about them doesn’t mean that everyone else can. In fact,most people are probably pretty bad at it so I finally learned not to take it personally.
For a while I toyed with going into casting, so I could take advantage of this ability. However, I strayed into TV editing instead. In that field, remembering which take I liked and which reaction I wanted to use (helped out by my visual memory for faces) really came in handy.
Interestingly my visual memory is only for faces, not for places.
I suffered a massive stroke when my daughter was born last March (due to HELLP Syndrome, a rare, extreme form of eclampsia) but luckily my memory for faces is still good, though I struggle with some pathfinding and short term memory issues. I joke that some people emerge from a coma with a newfound ability to speak ancient Greek or compose music. I’m just blessed that I lived, that I’m not in a permanent vegetative state like the surgeons feared, and also not on a walker or crutches as they predicted I’d be for a year.
When I was in my 20′s, everyone said I looked like Winona Ryder. Lately, I get Tina Fey, although Winona hasn’t left the building yet. My husband looks like Harrison Ford and Nick Faldo, the golfer.
So, you remind people of Boxer in Animal Farm? Wasn’t he the one that got carted off to the glue factory????
I used to get Sissy Spacek ALOT. Now I get Reba Macentire mostly. I think it’s an attitude thing and only when I break out my saucy southern accent.
Great idea for a post! Very interesting. Now you got me thinking.