Long rant incoming
I’m on a Heathers hype and was just watching the West End Live performance and oh my god I forgot just HOW much Carrie over-acts. I got so much second-hand embarrassment. The way she says ‘Fine, we’re damaged, really damaged, but that does not make us wise’ etc. was SO over-acted. She really can’t act for shit, why does she keep being cast in big roles?? It’s almost as bad as watching AJ and Curtis in Hollyoaks.
She’s such a GCSE performer but because she’s made a name for herself (because of her YouTube channel her name basically became a brand) she keeps getting lead roles.
I was watching everyone else’s performance in that video and everyone else is made for the theatre. All the lead roles are cast perfectly, apart from Veronica obviously. She absolutely sticks out like a sore thumb. During ‘Shine a Light’, all I could focus on were her exaggerated expressions. I said yesterday that she only has three facial expressions and god I was right. The ensemble all acted naturally and then there’s Carrie parading about like someone who is only there because she won a competition. It’s a shame because when she sings softly in ‘Seventeen’, her voice is great and when she’s not trying to singer louder or ‘act’ more than everyone else on stage, she’s good. But then she immediately switched back into that one weird angry expression she does and then does the weird eyebrow-raise side-smirk one (she does that one ALL THE TIME IT DRIVES ME INSANE!!!) and starts spitting out her words into poor Jamie Muscato’s face.
So wish I saw Olivia Moore, the bootlegs I’ve seen online (naughty I know) of her made me wish I saw her as Veronica because she was flawless. And Jodie Steele, Sophie Isaacs, T’Shan Williams, Jamie Muscato, Jenny O’Leary, Rebecca Locke, EVERYONE else was amazing in their roles. And then. Carrie. Charlotte Jaconelli, who played the stoner chick in the ensemble, has incredible vocals (check out her solo album, it’s amazing). Olivia Moore and Charlotte Jaconelli were so much more suited to the role (don’t even think Jaconelli played her as she was understudy for Fleming and Martha, but I think she would have been so good). It’s such a shame how Carrie so blatantly tries to hog the limelight, as if being stunt-casted wasn’t enough for her.
Carrie is for Heathers was David Hasselhoff was for 9 to 5. It’s frustrating because there are so many better actresses who could have gotten that role. So many better actresses that could have played Wednesday and Truly and could play Cinderella. But they give it to the one with the (bought) social media followers so they can slap her name on the poster and sell tickets. She is better suited to the ‘sad’ roles. By that I mean characters who have tragic stories like Eponine and Fantine. They were played well and they were sung well. I never saw her as Eponine but I’m going by the bootlegs (again soz) but I did see her as Fantine (this is shortly after I’d stopped being a fan so if she is reading this I don’t want her to think that I went to see HER as, much to her dismay, it’s Les Miserables, not The Carrie Show where everybody goes to see Carrie) and I was so surprised by how good she was in that. Then she goes for the American ‘feisty’ ‘not like other girls’ ‘doesn’t play by the rules’ roles and she becomes so tacky and the attempt at acting is just desperate. She made her name in the West End in Les Mis and I think that’s where she belongs, until she’s too old to play Eponine and Fantine. Then she should consider acting lessons while sponsoring sweet treats online.
Edit - Just wanted to add that I genuinely don’t think she gets stunt-casted because her brother is in McFly because that wouldn’t have been on her CV (or whatever the actor version of a CV is, I’m sure it has a name lol). But in the theatre programs, where they do a little bio about each actor, it has their credits and where they trained. In Carrie’s (in EVERY one I’ve seen) it has her acting credits and then says how many social media followers she has, which I always found weird. Why is it relevant to the show? Goes to show that she’s stunt-casted for her social media fame. She bangs on about how ‘I didn’t get into theatre because of my brother’ and that’s true because she was doing theatre before McFly was a thing. But she either doesn’t want to admit, or is in denial, about the fact she IS stunt-casted. And it’s because of her social media following. Which I think is why she spends so much money on increasing the numbers. So she doesn’t appear irrelevant online. Because then she will find it harder to get roles.
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