Big Names or Unknowns? A Postmodern Question

Here's something I've been recently thinking about.

Actually, that is an understatement. I have been thinking about this for a while.

A lot of movies these days seem to involve names who are big (or in exaggerated terms, "huge") names and well-known across the country and worldwide. There are various examples that I could spend a good day writing down, including people such as Colin Firth, Harrison Ford and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

However, there have also been examples of people who used to be "unknowns" who were turned into bigger names. George Lazenby is one person that comes to the top of my head, even if most of the work he did after 1969 was rather low-profile.

Admittedly, this kind of logic may not be plausible to consider and therefore this concept may be much more or less broader and looser than it actually is. But the question I am really asking myself is this: do we continue to use big name people? Or do we turn "unknown" people into big names?

Let's focus a bit of context on myself for now. I am currently finding some individuals for several upcoming projects that I have on my hands. My superiors, at the moment, highly recommend searching through acting sites (or search sites that can "borrow" actors) for the projects that I'm about to undertake for more professional purposes.

I, however, have other ideas. I am more interested in finding less-established individuals and turning them into big names. Even if they are not firmly established as an actor within industry standards, I believe it is possible to turn them into bigger people (although what I say may be plenty of postmodern thoughts, hence the title).

Let's face it; there are plenty of big names out there which are dominating the current film market that this decade has. But, as much as I like these kinds of people since it allows me to relate to their work easily enough through different means, I feel that there is an over reliance on those whose statuses are high. This decade is a mainstream decade, and the 21st Century has become a very mainstream century. By relying less on the known and bringing the unknown from the dark and into the light, there could be more variety in the cast lists in terms of the people that are brought in.

You could say that I disagree with using more "professional" methods. But sometimes, there are moments where the law cannot always be maintained, let alone lasting forever. And we now live in a world where some laws eventually have to be broken. The laws of casting is one of them. So what I ask is this: why restrict yourself when you can choose almost anyone and create a worldwide shell for your friend and/or colleague?