When regular beats extraordinary

In Hollywood, where hundreds, sometimes thousands, of performers will compete for one role, actor Michael Gogin has been known to walk out of auditions -- over what he sees as issues of taste and fairness.

Take what happened five years ago when the 4-foot, 3-inch actor went for an open call for “Night Stand,” a short-lived parody of television talk shows. The script called for him to be a singing, dancing dwarf, a Frank Sinatra type with an outsized masculinity, Gogin says.

“I went back to the producers, and I said, ‘You know? I’m really insulted by this,’ ” he says, describing the role as a demeaning, one-dimensional, over-sexualized caricature of little people [the descriptor preferred by those with dwarfism]. Gogin walked away from the casting call.

Gogin will play elves and leprechauns, as long as they are charming, kid-friendly and beloved -- not evil or demonic, as happened in the horror flick “Leprechaun.”

With 27 years of experience, Gogin feels fortunate that he can pick and choose his parts to avoid stereotypes and worse. He and some of his peers feel so strongly about the casting and parts available for little people that they have been battling since February to form their own committee within the Screen Actors Guild.

Eugene Pidgeon, an actor who is spearheading the effort, explains that the group hopes to raise Hollywood’s consciousness so writers, producers and casting directors understand that little people aren’t freaks, fantasies or stereotypes but skilled professionals who can and should get to tackle major and serious roles.

But, as with others in Hollywood’s talent pool who feel stigmatized or marginalized for reasons as varied as race, gender or sexual orientation, a significant challenge facing short-statured actors is agreeing on key issues and problems and how best to negotiate remedies with the industry.

Pidgeon, 48, who wears his hair long and gazes intensely through gold-rimmed spectacles, speaks with a slight Southern twang as he describes the travails of little people. Ever since the actor saw the WB’s “Gilmore Girls” and its mix of eclectic characters, he has labored to get a little person on the show. He’s offered himself for the role and even written a treatment to show how he would fit. His yearlong campaign has only resulted in frustration and anger -- emotions he says typify the experiences of the little people when dealing with Hollywood.

Pidgeon barraged the show’s representatives with letters.

“It’s our job to be open,” says “Gilmore Girls” casting director Jamie Rudofsky, “but also to stay with our writer’s vision.”

In response to his aggressive campaign, which included sending three dozen roses to Rudofsky and her partner, the television station drew a line. WB’s chief legal counsel Jody Zucker wrote Pidgeon, asking that all communications go through him.

While Pidgeon hopes still to see a short-statured actor on “Gilmore Girls,” the exasperating experience underscores to him that “every one of the dwarf actors [is] not being used to their full potential. That is, until Halloween, leprechauns, St. Patty’s Day or Christmas, we, as a general population, are considered an afterthought, as fringe players.”

SAG’s help in recognizing short-statured actors would be a huge step toward “dismantling the antiquated, prosaic perception of dwarfs in the Hollywood hierarchy.” Pidgeon says. “We don’t even constitute a blip on the radar screen, and I think that has to change.”

He hopes to set up a subcommittee for them, as they now are grouped under the umbrella of people with disabilities within SAG. “If you’re not a dwarf, you can’t represent dwarfs,” Pidgeon says. “If you’re not a dwarf, you are not going to understand what we’re going through.”

Pidgeon wants to see short-statured actors considered for more substantial roles. “If you’re going to cast a show, at least be willing to see a dwarf in an audition,” he says. “If I don’t get a role that’s fine, but if I don’t get a legitimate opportunity to vie for it, then that’s criminal.”

“It’s not just about seeing dwarfs on screen,” he continues. “It’s about changing the perception so drastically that you could turn on ‘Entertainment Tonight,’ and there would be a dwarf correspondent on the red carpet interviewing Paris Hilton, and it wouldn’t be freakish. It’d be legitimate.”

So why haven’t producers, writers or those with casting powers been more expansive about hiring short-statured actors? “I think we all bear some responsibility,” says Richard Hicks, president of Casting Society of America. “We all need to look at our perceptions and look at what we can to contribute to the most diverse slate, which, in fact, is the most representative of America as a community.”

Casting director John Papsidera says he has found work for little people during his 12 years in this business. But he admits that he lacked the power by himself to hire a short-statured person. As a casting director, “you can push the envelope, but ultimately it’s up to the filmmaker and the production to decide whether they will go in that direction,” he says.

With partner Wendy O’Brien, he recently was nominated for a best-casting Emmy for “Carnivale,” featuring the short-statured Michael J. Anderson as Samson, the circus manager, the lone dramatic starring role for a little person on television today. Daniel Knauf, creator and executive producer of HBO’s “Carnivale,” says that while he envisioned a short-statured character “I never wrote him as a little person. I just wrote him as a guy.”

“I needed to do a show about people that are different,” Knauf says. “It really doesn’t take long to get past a person’s appearance and right to their humanity. I wanted to pick that up right away by having one of my main characters be a little person.”

Knauf, who says Samson is one of his favorite characters and has “a lot of me in him,” notes that “I wanted to write him as a straight-up, fully formed, dramatic character -- not cute or diminutive or funny. I wanted to write him as a man who was brave, crooked, incredibly honest and noble. In short, I wanted to write a fully rounded, flawed human character who just happens to be a little person.”

Knauf says his father, who was in a wheelchair since the writer was 2, has greatly influenced his work. “I know how people related to him,” Knauf says. “They never related to him as John Knauf.”

The writer says he thinks that defining a person by their size is “just ridiculous ... I just wish that we as a society would start celebrating the full range of people out there instead of some narrow idea of physical perfection.”

The theater treats short-statured actors better than movies do, they agree, in part, explains director Michael Michetti, who has been in the business for 28 years, because theater has always been more unconventional and avant-garde, its directors are more likely to experiment and the audiences are more willing to suspend belief.

Michetti just finished directing Boston Court Theatre’s production of “Summertime,” a play about the diverse nature of love. Even though the script did not call for a little person, he cast 4-foot, 5-inch Marcia deRousse in the grandmother role at an open call in Pasadena. “Marcia came in with a distinctive physical type, had the goods and was the perfect fit,” he says.

Michetti has cast hundreds of productions, mostly in Southern California. “This is the first time I’ve cast little person -- not out of design,” he says. “I frankly have not encountered many of them in my career as actors and haven’t had them audition for me, so it is the first time for me, hopefully not the last.”

Michetti says he sees this acting struggle in historic terms, noting, “nontraditional casting has been very much a topic of heated conversation over the last couple of decades, and in most cases it’s been issues of race that have been dealt with. But I think that there are a few areas that are under-explored, and that includes people with disabilities and little people.”

Decades ago, deRousse recalls getting shunned and even cursed because of her size by a director at a television audition. The experience, which left her in tears, proved so traumatic that she blanked it out for years. “It was beyond rudeness,” she says. “Good thing I’ve got a tough skin or I probably would’ve committed suicide that day.”

Such ugly incidents and subtler discrimination she has experienced have led deRousse to work with Pidgeon.

The activists agree they could spend a long time tackling the range of concerns of actors like them.

Gogin sees history repeating itself in 1950s-style television programming that portrays people with physical challenges as monstrous. Some of the small, evil creatures of WB’s “Charmed” fall into such negative stereotyping, he contends.

But what really troubles Pidgeon, besides seeing little people get ignored, is when parts they might fill get cast with computer creations or by regular-sized folk made little via special-effects magic. “The Lord of the Rings” films not only used computers to generate Golem but also hired Elijah Wood and Sean Astin to portray two of the Hobbits. Gary Oldman played a dwarf in last year’s romantic comedy “Tiptoes.” And John Leguizamo was Toulouse-Lautrec in Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge.”

Mark Povinelli, who plays a CEO opposite Jon Bon Jovi in the upcoming film “National Lampoon’s the Trouble With Frank,” says he was reluctant to join Pidgeon because he believes matters have improved for him and others like him. The 3-foot, 9-inch actor cited examples like Peter Dinklage’s success as the romantic lead in the independent film “The Station Agent” and Anderson’s role in “Carnivale.”

The issue of the disability designation in their SAG status also divides short-statured actors, with Pidgeon arguing that being “corralled under the umbrella of persons with disabilities ... burdens us with another unnecessary assignation. Already we’re cast as munchkins, trolls, elves, Oompa Loompas, and now to be cast as disabled? It’s unproductive.”

But does Gogin view himself as disabled? “Absolutely. And absolutely not,” he says, enigmatically. “We, the short-statured community, have a lack in height.”

While a dozen colleagues are actively campaigning with Pidgeon, many others are afraid to challenge the status quo, he says, noting, “for 25 to 40 years, they’re caught between their desire to put food on the table and their desire not to be considered a liability.” Little people have had to “suffer through the worst kind of role because that’s all they can get.” His efforts to effect change have been met by resistance from other members of the disabilities group, and “we’re even getting resentment from the dwarfs,” Pidgeon says. He vows to press on.

Povinelli says he wants to help channel Pidgeon’s energy toward a more productive and positive direction. “With SAG’s help, I think we’re really going to be able to educate and enlighten Hollywood,” he says.

While Pidgeon is full of passion, Povinelli -- who soon will play Henri Toulouse-Lautrec in Lincoln Center Theater’s “Belle Epoque” -- seems motivated by reason. “We’re not just disgruntled actors,” Povinelli says. “Because I’m not particularly disgruntled.”

DeRousse says the short-statured actors’ demands for respect, legitimacy and consideration, are based on a simple principle: “We are just people. We would like to be portrayed that way.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Limited engagement

Since 1965, short-statured actors say, there have been few outstanding on-screen opportunities for people like them. Before the 1980s, Billy Barty and Michael Dunn were the dominant forces.

Michael Dunn as Dr. Miguelito Loveless in “The Wild Wild West” (1965-1968)

Michael Dunn as Carl Glocken in “Ship of Fools” (1965) (nominated for an Oscar)

Billy Barty as Abe Kusich in “The Day of the Locust” (1975)

Billy Barty as J.J. MacKuen in “Foul Play” (1978)

David Rappaport (Randall) and ensemble in “Time Bandits” (1981)

Zelda Rubinstein as Tangina Barrons in “Poltergeist,” “Poltergeist II: The Other Side,” “Poltergeist III” (1982,1986, 1988)

Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood in “Willow” (1988)

Danny Woodburn as Mickey Abbott in “Seinfeld” (1990)

Meredith Eaton as Emily Resnick in “Family Law” (1999)

Peter Dinklage as Finbar McBride in “The Station Agent” (2003)

Michael J. Anderson as Samson in “Carnivale” (2003-2004)