Acting! It’s easy. All you have to do is cry, right? Well, Episode 12, And Action, teaches us that acting is actually, like, a lot more than crying and being pretty. Acting is about pulling painful, traumatic memories from the back parts of your brain and serving them up to a small audience of producers and editors who will then pimp your problems to the world for cash money. At least, that’s what I got from this week’s episode.
The girls are acutely aware the show’s down to the top five, but (to keep with the theme of this season) most manage to miss the mark. India, Courtney, and Cody shoot for best photo by overacting. (“Acting is a passion of mine… I have buckets and buckets of memories with a lot of hard emotions attached to them.” —Courtney) And Cory Anne and Tatiana go for the more understated, nonexistent type of acting. (“Acting, I suck at. Straight up.” —Tatiana) Fortunately, Rita Ora, who apparently has the “acting bug” after filming her 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, brings in a scary acting coach to teach the girls a fucked up, outdated, manipulative style of acting. (BTW, Ora, if you caught something on the 50 Shades set, you should prolly get that checked out by a doctor.)
Rita Ora introduces the girls to acting coach Susan Batson. She’s a life member of the Actors Studio, a famous studio that borrowed some innovative ideas from Russia in the 1930s and made them lowkey emotionally abusive but also super effective. For fun: here’s a video of Susan Batson telling a bunch of bored Dolce & Gabbana models they need to find their truth by finding themselves in their power. If that all sounds like unquantifiable woo-woo bullshit, it’s because it is, in fact, unquantifiable woo-woo bullshit.
Batson gives all the girls a weird scene about Gandhi that they have to perform with “Black Cindy” from Orange is the New Black. It makes about as much sense as Batson’s direction. Tatiana can’t take it seriously (cuz she has the best nose for B.S. out of the bunch), and Courtney (to no one’s surprise) performs the role of a tearful victim better than anyone else. Overall, everyone seems uncomfortable, except Ora, who has more energy than usual. Call her Rita “Halle Berry” Ora, cuz this girl loves method acting. (Halle Berry, BTW, loves method acting and didn’t bathe for two weeks before shooting Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. I know this because I used to obsessively watch Inside the Actors Studio.)
For the photo challenge, Drew Elliot makes the girls go “mad in the name of beauty.” Each of the girls has one take to rip off a wig and smear makeup all over their face. I guess it’s an acting challenge because Elliot keeps yelling, “What’s going on in your mind!? What’s going on in your makeup!?” But, really, it just seems like Elliot watched too much RuPaul’s Drag Race and made a challenge that mimicked Roxxxy Andrew’s famous double wig reveal in season five.
Speaking of drag queens, Cory Anne DRAGS her mother, supermodel Stephanie Roberts, this week by spilling all the tea on their sorta sad relationship. Basically, Cory Anne moved back to America thinking she’d be BFFs with her long-lost model mama but then her mom was like “IDK about you” and it was rough. Now they’re okay. Nevertheless, Cory Anne brings it up because crazy Susan Batson says Cory Anne has to drudge up her own personal feelings of loss in order to effectively communicate sadness as an actor. It all reminds me of that one song from A Chorus Line where the girl feels nothing and realizes she’s a dancer. (Don’t worry, Cory Anne, you don’t have to be an actress—you’re a model!)
The most memorable shoot this week belongs to Cody, who has a bizarre take with Drew Elliot where she does everything out of order, smearing her makeup in all the wrong spots while Drew yells, “Where’s the change!? Where’s the change!? What’s going on!?” Cody’s confident in her shoot, saying she looked like a Picasso painting, but Courtney snaps: “When you look like a unicorn shit on your face, how can you come back confident?”
WINNER WINNER: India wins. It’s a bit of a surprise because Batson said she was “verrrrry act-y” like being act-y is a bad thing for an acting challenge. But Batson also said “when you went into the emotional light we could really feel you,” which doesn’t make sense either, so IDK.
BYE BYE: Cody, the last of our twinsies, goes home this week. Cody’s been an unexpected champion this season, winning best photo last week and sending her twin sister home twice. But, in the end, it came down to Cody and Tatiana in the bottom two, and there’s no way literal boss Tatiana’s going home. She has her own “skin BUTTR” company!
Next Week: Who’s got the London look? The girls shoot their Rimmel London commercials & get rained on. (So our hometown Seattle queen, India, should kill it, right?)
P.S. Feel like doing a little acting yourself? VH1 filmed a Rita Ora makeup tutorial with Alaska Thunderfuck 5000. Put on some fancy dress and be your own Ora.
