Yowza. Those are some hot high-res pics. I gotta say, I think Jewel is my favorite Whedonverse babe.

jam2 | March 05, 02:23 CET

When I was younger, I had such a crush on her, from Space Cases and Flash Forward. I was so thrilled when I found out she was on Firefly.

kishi | March 05, 02:56 CET

Have to agree that she's one fine hottie.

Great pics too, might have found my next desktop wallpaper.

Ghost Spike | March 05, 03:36 CET

She's my favorite pretty hunk.

futile | March 05, 05:54 CET

Space Cases!

Only in that show could she play two different characters, with a different wig for one.

gossi | March 05, 05:57 CET

Can I hide my wolf's smile? Jewel is a dreamboat. Must stop now, I'm drooling on my keyboard.

Madhatter | March 05, 07:45 CET

Ah...so beautiful...

UnpluggedCrazy | March 05, 13:26 CET

Nevermind.

[ edited by Madhatter on 2006-03-05 15:01 ]

Madhatter | March 05, 16:54 CET

Yep, Jewel's a hottie, but does anyone besides me find the dress pictures overly "posed" ? She's trying so hard to do the hot thing but you can see in her eyes she's not comfortable with it.

For me if the eyes indicate a lack of being present, it's not such a hot photo. By my light the first 3 pictures are way "hotter" than the overly made-up (masked) ones that follow.

Just to be clear, I'm not picking on Jewel here, I see this a lot in glamour photos.

malformed | March 05, 18:37 CET

These glamour photos haven't been touched up. You can still see skin blemishes and [except for two] they're not airbrushed in any way that I can see. This is why the eyes look the way they do, Malformed. Before you see most touched up photos on cosmo mags or whatever, they're carefully screened and tweaked, even to the point of giving highlights to eyes to make them sparkle, and give the appearance of "being present" but it's all smoke and mirrors.

I like these cuz they're raw. Except for the two where she's in a black shirt with the one button? Those two look very fake and airbrushed. The rest of them look more 'her' and I dig that. She has that look of the girl who was The Girl Next Door but she left, made a name for herself, and now she's back. The one where she's in a pink top and blue jeans and her feet are up in the background and she's REALLY smiling, that one's the best I think.


Now don't get me wrong I think the casting directors got the best woman for the role of Kaylee. However, I don't understand the mentality of Hollywood in that they feel it necessary to hire a thin girl and tell her to gain weight, as opposed to hiring an equally talented overweight girl. It's not like there's a drought of large women among actresses. It's not a matter of whether or not a woman has size. It's how she carries herself and whether or not she keeps healthy. This sounds more like a control issue to me than trying to get the right person for the right part. Will this woman do what she's told? If she gains or loses twenty pounds in two weeks we'll know how much she wants the role. I think it's bogus behavior towards fellow human beings.

[ edited by ZachsMind on 2006-03-05 18:38 ]

ZachsMind | March 05, 20:37 CET

...All that said, Ms. Staite is a talented and beautiful lady, but she's also happily married so I try not to lust after her... too much. *smirk* Still objectively speaking if I were asked to pick the most beautiful woman in Whedon's verse(s), it'd be a very close race between Kaylee and Tara. Granted, Zoe/Jasmine is a knockout beauty, but just not my type. Too much slink. I like a girl with some froo-frooah.

ZachsMind | March 05, 20:44 CET

Well, it was Joss who asked her to gain the weight for the series, and told her not to bother for the movie. I don't think he would've fired her had she not done so, but he can feel free to correct me (Joss bait, modded -1 ;) ). I think that he found the perfect actress for the role and rather than fish about for someone else he asked her if it would be possible to do this for the role.

zeitgeist | March 05, 20:45 CET

hey ZachsMind, i think you're looing for some foofaraw :)
FOO-fuh-raw, noun:
1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration.
2. A fuss over a matter of little importance.

foofaraw | March 05, 21:53 CET

Yes, about Jewel's weight gain, I think I had read that actually they were looking very hard for a woman of "normal" weight (not necessarily an "overweight" person), but thought Jewel, a woman of "Hollywood normal" weight (meaning, weighs 20 pounds less than the women we are likely to meet every day), was the best for the role, so they asked her if she would gain some. I don't think control was the issue, simply making sure that the mechanic didn't look out of place by being supermodel/TV actress thin. I never, ever thought Kaylee looked "overweight" or "zaftig" (as the pilot script describes), but it might have been odd if she had been a "size 0." Jewel has always been so perfect in the role, I couldn't possibly picture anyone else, of any size, as Kaylee! :-)

billz | March 06, 03:10 CET

Joss in this case actually did the reverse of what most directors or producers ask. And y'know. Kudos. Most of the time an actress is asked to LOSE twenty pounds, because the camera will put weight on you. The camera is heartless and it can show all one's flaws. I can understand the mechanics behind why this must be, but perhaps I can't comprehend why we tolerate it.

I remember seeing the original pilot of Buffy for the first time and going, "now THAT's what Willow should look like!" Riff Regan did a great job in my opinion. Although Hannigan took the role and made it hers and most people will never have a chance to appreciate Regan in that role, nor perhaps would they, I KNEW girls like that in high school, and they rarely looked like Alyson Hannigan. They looked more like Riff Regan.

Hollywood (and Television City) does what it does because it's giving its audience what it thinks they want. Jonathan Frakes still did a good job playing Riker in STNG after season one, when he started filling out a bit, yet people made a big deal out of it at the time. Maybe people don't wanna see a Camryn Manheim on their screen. No matter how talented she is, all some see is the weight. It's troublesome to me, that this is how we are as a people. As a species. How our brains work the way they do.

The audience may only want beautiful people. I don't see why someone's weight should make them less or more beautiful. It's how a person carries oneself. It's how one cares for oneself. I can tell a healthy person regardless of weight. I think I respond to that more. If they look anorexic and malnourished that is as sickening to me as a grossly overweight person who's unhealthy and unkempt and may die of a heart attack any second.

For me, I like to see someone who BOTH behaves AND appears the part and perhaps that's too much to ask. It's a taller order. I often settle for someone who either looks or behaves the part. To be fair, but that's mostly because I don't get to direct. I don't get to produce, and if I DID, I'd probably have to settle then too. One can only do so much.

Staite IS Kaylee. She made the role her own, and whether she was twenty pounds lighter or heavier really doesn't matter. I guess that's what I was trying to say. I just wish we could get to a point someday where it just doesn't matter. Where the health of a talented person is more important than their visual size.

ZachsMind | March 06, 09:35 CET

Well said, ZachsMind!

billz | March 06, 09:47 CET

Some good points Zachsmind most of which I agree with completely. Personally, i'm glad Alyson Hannigan played Willow, she's very talented and cute as a button. I've also seen the unaired Buffy pilot and thought Riff Regan was a bit wooden (tho' it's hard to tell since the whole thing had such an unfinished quality to it being, y'know, unfinished) but I completely take your point that she was much more 'normal' looking. How many times have we seen 'normal' girls in films that are actually drop dead gorgeous girls but with, say, glasses on ? The whole *remove glasses, let down hair* 'Why, Miss Perkins, you're beautiful' thing was a cliche in the 50s never mind now.

Incidentally, I think the obsession with a thin figure is a purely cultural phenomenon (tho' there's some, IMO slightly sketchy, evidence that waist-to-hip ratio is sexually selected). If you look at (so called) primitive peoples in places like New Guinea, a bit of extra weight on a woman is seen as a sign of good health and prosperity. They would look upon current Hollywood sex symbols in much the same way we see concentration camp survivors. And even in Western culture up until as recently as 30-40 years ago we had voluptuous, curvy, sex symbols (e.g. Marilyn Monroe) that would probably be considered overweight by today's Hollywood standards.

Saje | March 06, 17:16 CET