Originally from San Francisco, Mike Romo worked on a variety of (small) stages in New York for years before coming to Los Angeles. In-between auditions, Mike works in the software industry and writes a weekly column on comics and comic book culture for iFanboy.com. You can find more of his work at mikeromo.com and follow him on Twitter @rikemomo.

Steve McQueen. Paul Newman. Robert Redford.  John Wayne.  Icons, all.  Symbols, really, of what the archetypical American male is all about — strong, rugged, defiant, independent…all words that come to mind as you flash through these actors in your head.  Heroes of another generation, movie stars from another era who have inspired a whole generation of actors, ready to follow in their footsteps.

Or not.

If you’ve been listening to the casting chatter regarding the casting for upcoming superheroes, streetwise detectives, and other “gritty” kinds of characters, you might have heard that male American actors no longer have what it takes to be heroes. That our leading men or more cerebral than tough, more sensitive and thoughtful than reckless and rugged.

I first heard about this line of thinking while waiting for a commercial audition at 5th Street casting.  Somehow the news of Henry Cavill being cast in Zach Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie came up, and the guy who I was talking to mentioned a Reuters article, titled American Superheroes Missing in Hollywood to me. This had been the subject of some controversy on iFanboy, the comic book website I write for, and the general consensus was that  it was really kind of crazy that we had so many non American actors being cast in a variety of upcoming superhero roles:

Henry Cavill, English, as Superman
Christian Bale, Welsh, as Batman
Chris Hemsworth, Australian, as Thor
Ryan Reynolds, Canadian, as Green Lantern
Andrew Lincoln, English, as Rick Grimes, a cop from a small town in Kentucky, in AMC’s The Walking Dead
Hugh Jackman, Australian, as Wolverine (who is a Canadian character, I get it, but spends most of his time in the States)

The only hero bucking this trend is, thankfully, Chris Evans from Boston, playing Captain America. And though the article talks about how Andrew Garfield is playing Spider-Man being was raised in Britain, he was born in Los Angeles, so we’ll just give him a pass.

Now, I don’t think there is anyone reading this who is quick to say that, of course, the best actor for the job is the one who should be cast.  And sure, these are just silly superhero movies, who cares, right?  What was troubling, as I kept reading the piece, was that, according to an “anonymous talent rep,” there are just “better actors” coming from England and Australia than in US.  Add to that The Shield’s creator Shawn Ryan’s complaints that he “struggled” to find a leading American man to play the Chicago cop lead in The Chicago Code, and Michael Caine’s writing in his latest memoir, The Elephant to Hollywood,  how he has no idea where the next Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino was going to come from (at least he does says one will come eventually in this BBC interview ), one could be forgiven if some of us actors are feeling a bit more frustrated, if not defensive, these days.

The Reuters article discusses how some might be interpreting the casting of iconic American superheroes with non Americans a kind of sign of America’s slow decline, or yet another example of globalization, where the notion of a country “owning” a hero is patently ridiculous. This strikes me as a clever hook, and only time will tell, but, in my opinion, this is less about the fall of our nation and more about the numbers.

Basically, it’s a lot easier to cast people from anywhere in the world. Just boot up Skype, pick up your sides, and go.  (This is apparently how Mila Kunis got cast in Black Swan.) Of course, now that you can cast from anywhere, you run into the problem that you can cast everyone from everywhere — so there is natural inclination to make the job easier, to cast from a smaller pool, a pool from which other successful actors have come from. So, it only makes sense, from a practical level, to cast from Britain and Australia. Good actors–and fewer of them.  And not only do you have to see fewer actors, odds are they will help give your film broader appeal in the European and International markets.

This was my new friend’s take on the whole situation, that casting directors were lazy, and just looking at this smaller pool of actors outside of the US. And he meant it; he was angry about it.

That’s one way to look at it: the Internet has expanded the casting pool, and local actors are not getting the benefits that they assumed they would get from moving to Hollywood.  The other, more disconcerting angle (which is why I was compelled to write this piece in the first place) comes from folks like Shawn Ryan, who did his best to find a compelling American actor to play a Chicago cop, but, somehow, was not getting what he needed from the American actors he saw, and decided to cast an Australian. On an episode of KCRW’s The Business, Kim Masters asked Ryan “Where are the American male television leads?” He mused:

Well, I have a theory they are on athletic fields in this country and not in front of cameras, and I’ve kind of only half-jokingly pitched to a few different executives that maybe I should go on a fact finding mission […] we all talk about the hardest thing to do in this town is to find the 30-45 year old leading man that can truly head up a TV show. You can find one to star in movies, but it’s very difficult to find one in TV, and you wonder where they all are, and […] American men don’t lack toughness, but American men don’t seem to be studying theater, they don’t seem to be studying acting and that’s why, you know, they are playing hockey, they are playing football, they playing sports, and I am semi serious about going to ten different colleges, going to the athletic programs, and auditioning a bunch of guys because there are jobs here in Hollywood and there is an unbelievable life and career ahead of you if you can make it, if you can, you know–who are the John Waynes, the Clint Eastwoods, and this ilk? Who are the James Garners that can really appear? There are some…but the fact is they seem to be coming more out of England and Australia at the moment then out of our country, and my own wounded patriotic pride says they’ve got to be somewhere here.

And when asked what he sees when he does audition American actors, he said:

…[American actors seem] slight…slight more than weak […] but there’s just something that they [English and Australian actors] convey, and you get a guy like Jason Clarke, who’s tall and strapping — but there are a lot of tall and strapping guys — but there’s an attitude that he brings, and whether it’s because he grew up on a ranch in Australia or something else, there’s just the toughness there, and a quiet certitude that I recognize in the Chicago police officers that I’ve actually followed around, and so it’s odd to think that a born and raised Chicago police officer would feel so similar to this Australian actor and yet they do. So, it’s great that we have all these options and we have these British and Australian actors available to us, but it would be nice if America could have produced the next Superman.

Now, I have no idea if this is what other producers think about American male actors, but given the examples cited above, it’s enough to get me worried.  Has America just become too soft? Too lazy? Is life so good here that we aren’t struggling enough? That our lives are so cushy that we are unable to play rougher, harder characters? Of course not.  Of course not.  I may not have plowed fields as a kid, but I daresay my “leaner” years in New York taught me a lot about life — look, most everyone who has chosen to work in this business, especially as an actor, went through a lot to get here, and besides — we’re actors.  Building a character is not just our job, but our calling, and we’ll bring everything we can to create the role. Everyone in this business has sacrificed a lot to do this, is working hard to make this happen, and that experience counts.  This is not about the right actor not being out there, it’s about the right actor not getting seen.

We hear the same stories, again and again, about how TV and film producers have these casting problems, where they just can’t find the right actor for a part, and it seems unbelievable on the face of it–there is certainly not a shortage of good actors in Los Angeles, male or female.  As I listened to the frustration in Ryan’s voice as he talks about the challenges he had find his lead, I just imagined all of these actors listening to his story in their car, pounding their steering wheels, wondering why they didn’t get a chance to audition for him. Yes, the Internet has made it easier for casting directors. They can see more actors, they can do more work in less time (which makes for unreasonable expectations on them in terms of delivering actors as quickly as possible, to be sure), but is it at the expense of the American actor?  Oh, and by the way, this is not just happening to male actors. As Claire Winters pointed out when discussing this piece, younger female historical characters are usually, if not always, played by British, Canadian and Australian women (Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams…the list goes on).

This is less about acting ability and more about the convenience that modern technology has brought to the casting process, and with that convenience, the compression of time that results, yes, in a quicker casting process, but also makes it more difficult for casting directors to present new actors to producers and directors. The parallels to other industries (think software development and manufacturing) are uncomfortably similar: with modern technology the playing field is both expanded and flattened, with local resources left untapped due to cost. However, in this case, the impetus behind this shift is more troubling, almost sinister. Producers are not only doing this to save money, they are doing this because they think the product, the acting, is inherently better.  When producers feel they can spend less money for a better product, well, their job is done.

I don’t have an answer to this. If anything, I have more questions, and maybe some of the casting directors out there can chime in on the comments. As a trained American actor, I find myself working hard not to be insulted by these claims that Americans just don’t have what it takes to be the lead on a TV series, or that we are too “slight” to be a hero, that, somehow, the “metrosexualization” of the American male has resulted in less capable actors.  But if that is truly what producers are thinking, then we must accept that perception is reality, no matter for skewed that perception is.

If it’s not the acting, then it is a failure on the part of American actors get in front of casting directors. If they know that it’s just easier to cast from that smaller pool of actors, than we have to jump the fence and dive into that pool. As long as we’ve done this, people have warned us that the actor’s life is hard, that there was no reason to expect success, that even though you might have talent, it didn’t mean you were going to get a job, let alone success.  Fine, okay. For my part, I have understood that for whatever reason, I am not getting into the auditions I want to, so I have been going to more and casting director workshops. Yes, they can be frustrating, and I know many out there find the idea of paying to be seen repulsive, but right now, this is what I can do.

This is not a screed from a frustrated actor watching his dreams of playing Clark Kent get dashed. And I do not think, honestly, that casting directors are being lazy — far from it. The casting cycle has both been expanded and compressed, and casting directors are doing the best they can. No, this is a both a call to wake up and a call to take action: we have to acknowledge that it is quite possibly more difficult to be an actor now than at any other time in history. We have to understand the role technology plays and use it to our advantage. We have to work with casting directors, we have to make it as easy as possible for them to remember us, as easy as possible for them to recommend us, as easy as possible to cast us.  We have to go where they are, we have to know what they are working on. We have to go to their workshops, we have to follow them on twitter, “like” them on Facebook, whatever it takes, we must engage them.

Ladies and gentleman: we can play these roles. There are heroes in our midst. We follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest actors in history. The legacy handed to us by the likes of Marlon Brando, Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart provide a powerful foundation that we must build on. We must take a deep breath and remind the world of what we can do and why our voices continue to remain relevant. Right here, right now, the mantle of the “modern American actor” is ours, and it is our responsibility to embrace our legacy and define our contribution, starting with shattering the jaded expectations that are taking root around us.

Let’s get to work.