For twin actors, finding good roles is twice as tough
They may face less competition for scoring on-screen parts, but the roles they're vying to play often leave a lot to be desired.
ANISA and Olissa Brooks are the first set of identical twins of the day to audition for "Mardi Gras," a teen sex comedy about three guy friends -- Mike, Bump and Ira -- who head to New Orleans to get lucky. The twins, Sherman Oaks residents of Irish and Abanake extraction, wear the same outfit: black tank top, pinstriped short shorts and brown suede open-toed high heels. Their dark hair falls well below their shoulders, and they have a tendency to say the same thing at the same time.
"How long have you been doing the twin thing?" asks casting director Catherine Stroud of London/Stroud Casting, who is seated on an old sofa in a bare-walled room in a temporary production office on the Sony lot in Culver City. Behind her, an assistant operates a video camera.
"About three years now," they reply in stereo, their voices loud and stark in the small, resonant space.
"But you were always twins," deadpans Stroud, before adding as an aside, "They didn't get my little joke . . ."
They smile politely.
Corniness is nothing out of the ordinary for the Brooks sisters -- or, for that matter, any pair of identical twins with Hollywood dreams. With most twin-centric plots involving evil doppelgängers, mistaken identities or sexual fantasy, challenging, complex parts can be difficult to come by. And even when great twin roles do come along, say in films such as "The Parent Trap" or "The Prestige," it's famous singleton actors who are cast and doubled on screen through camera trickery.
"In movies, twins are either killing somebody or they're hooking up with the same person," says Ashley Ummel, a leggy blond who, along with her identical twin sister, Sarah, is competing against the Brooks sisters for roles in "Mardi Gras." "Or I also see roles [where] twins start making out with each other. And then they wonder why they can't get anybody cast in that. Nobody wants to make out with her sister -- unless you're that desperate to get a part."
On-screen staples
DESPITE the small number of twin actors in competition for roles, twins appear on the screen more frequently than they do on the streets. A few of the many projects currently casting multiples are the "Sex and the City" movie, commercials for Clairol Herbal Essences and JC Penney, and a Dolce & Gabbana campaign.
Of course, the younger the actor, the bigger the advantage to being a twin because the law restricts the number of hours infants and children can spend working on movie sets.
