Hollywood to Actors: Ditch the Plastic Surgery

Sept. 16, 2010— -- What has happened to the face of Hollywood? Botox-ed beauties have been Tinseltown staples in recent decades but the land of nip-tuck now seems to be going back to au naturel.

Casting agents are increasingly looking for actors who look like "normal people" rather than the many Hollywood starlets who have surgical enhancements to advance their looks.

Francene Selkirk, a 15-year casting director who has filled roles for TV shows and movies such as "Dodgeball," said many directors in the entertainment industry are turning away from silicone-filled, artificial bodies unless needed as a specific character trait.

"I would have to say that 99 percent of commercial directors don't want it," Selkirk said.

The "natural look" is back in, and looking "plastically perfect" in every way may not work to an actor's advantage anymore, she said. A casting notice for the upcoming fourth installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, for instance, specified that actresses "must have real breasts."

Selkirk's pet peeve when reviewing actors' head shots: "Face work," she said, especially lip injections.

She encourages young actresses not to think they have to go under the knife to get casted.

"I'm very anti-surgery," she added. "I think that the times have changed and I think the look is natural, people want natural. It really changes the shape of your lips and ... it means 'alien' to me, your face doesn't move correctly."

Big-screen casting director Danny Roth, who has several projects under his belt, said plastic surgery has invaded Hollywood to the point that it's becoming more difficult to find actors to play certain ages.

"There's kind of a blur between 40 and 60, like, where are those women?" he asked. "The women over 40 are trying really hard to stay down there until they are doing the grandmother roles."

Reality-TV star Heidi Montag became the poster child for mega-plastic surgery overhaul after it was revealed she had 10 procedures in a single day.

And she's not alone: Joan Rivers, Michael Jackson, Kathy Griffin, Playboy's Holly Madison, the list of celebrities with artificial enhancements seems endless.

Movie, Fashion Industries Want Natural Bodies

Even plastic surgeons who defend the use of plastic enhancements for every part of the body imaginable concede that more isn't always better.

"As a profession, we are definitely aware of the 'overdone' look, at least I am," said Dr. Andrew Da Lio, a plastic surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center.

"We try to consult patients to be as natural as they can be while still providing some improvements, some accentuations of the features that they already have."

In some ways, it appears Hollywood is taking a page from another industry's book: the fashion industry.

Wilhelmina Models president Sean Patterson has a keen eye for beauty and said "fashion is always looking for the genuine article."

"There are a lot of beautiful people out there, and I don't think fashion has ever had a real tolerance for people that look cosmetically or surgically enhanced," he stated.

The VH1 reality-TV show "The Agency" followed Patterson's modeling agency and showed how young male and female hopefuls were molded into marketable, fashionable people.

"I think it's very apparent when somebody's had any sort of cosmetic surgery," Patterson said. "All the agents I've ever worked with, they know if they spot that it's not somebody they'd be able to book."

For those who walk the plastic road, beware. It might be impossible to correct or remove plastic surgery enhancements later.

"Sometimes we can't help, sometimes it's difficult to undo what's been done," surgeon Da Lio said. "We can correct some anomalies, there are some things that we can improve upon but not reverse completely."

Hollywood isn't totally void of pressures for men and women to go under the knife. Aspiring actress Ashley Davis said she lost several parts when she was young because she was told she wasn't pretty or sexy enough. Such negative feedback, she cautioned, isn't always constructive.

"You have a choice," she said. "You can be devastated and try to make yourself something that they say.

"So you're always going to be chasing something that you know conceivably you'll never get to."

ABC News' Lauren Effron contributed to this report.