Have you ever watched a movie with a certain actor and thought, "I've seen them in this role before."

Well, I'm here to tell you that you're not crazy for thinking that. A common thing in the theatre and film industry is typecasting. For those of you who don't know, typecasting is when an actor/actress constantly gets assigned the same type of role. Usually this is a result of either their look, or past success in a certain role. There's a reason Will Smith always seems to be playing the same guy. After all, Hollywood is a business, as much as we want to believe it's all about the arts, the producers want to make a profit. If an actor is good in a certain type of role, then they'll keep getting cast in that role to help turn out a profit.

I've been in I don't know how many shows at this point. Even before I heard the term typecasting, I had a good idea of what kind of roles someone will be cast in. In high school, after and even before every audition, my friends and I would predict who would get cast in which role, and we were right a lot of times.

As shallow as it sounds, when it comes to casting, your look plays a big role into what kind of role you get. What you're good at playing does play an important factor, but your look does matter as well. I had a friend in high school who was very good at playing mother and hag types of roles. She's also fairly tall, so her look would help her play characters like the Witch in "Into the Woods" who need to be intimidating.

Typecasting can help someone have a successful career. Broadway actress Sierra Boggess, for example, has made her career by playing ingenues on stage. The ingenue is a character type that is generally a young girl or woman who is endearingly innocent. They also typically fall into the princess or damsel in distress kind of role. Sierra played Cosette in "Les Miserables," originated Ariel in "the Little Mermaid" on Broadway, and has played Christine Daae in "Phantom of the Opera" more times then just about anybody.

Typecasting can also help you determine what role you should audition for so you have the best chance at booking it. For example, I know that my casting type is the ingenue. I can play it, and the ingenue in musical theatre typically sings in the soprano range, which is what I'm comfortable singing. My junior year in high school, when it was announced that the musical that year would be "Sweeny Todd," I wasn't familiar with the show. I asked a friend who had seen the show which role he thought I should audition for. He recommended I go for Johanna. After doing some quick research into the show, I quickly learned that Johanna was the ingenue of the show, and she's a soprano. Even though I didn't get the part, I felt like it was one of my best auditions I had ever done.

There is, however, the frustration that comes with typecasting. An actor can get tired of playing the same kind of role over and over again. Actor Thomas Sangster, for example, has said in interviews that he's getting tired of playing "cute" roles, that he would be much more interested in playing a villain, but no one will cast him because when audiences look at him, all they can see is the cute little boy from "Love Actually," despite the fact that Sangster is twenty-eight now.

I'm not saying typecasting is inherently good or bad. It's just a reality in the entertainment industry that can either be an advantage to some, or a curse to others.