With a wave of Hollywood’s magic wand, Dexter brutally bludgeons his victims, co-stars simulate sex and Tom Cruise looks tall.
But there are some things Hollywood can’t fake — or there are some fake things that Hollywood can’t make look real.
For the creators of a Starz series who wanted an authentic look for “Magic City,” a show set in 1959 Miami, it was nearly impossible to find local women with natural breasts.
“I’ve actually had better luck finding synchronized swimming groups than I did finding real boobs,” Bill Marinella, a locals casting director, told the Miami Herald.
“We were rigorous about everything across the board from music to architecture down to [the breasts],” Mitch Glazer, a “Magic City” producer and writer.
One of the casting notices read: “GIRLS HAD FULLER FIGURES BACK THEN. … SO NO SKINNY MODELS. ALL-NATURAL — NO PLASTIC SURGERY/BREAST IMPLANTS.”
Breast implants are the most popular plastic surgery procedure, and South Florida accounts for 16 percent of all of the country’s plastic surgery, according to research from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Miami came in third, behind Beverly Hills and San Francisco, for the highest number of boob jobs.
Marinella also had to look out for tattoos, lip injections and other cosmetic procedures. “We need girls with the big hips and the curves. And down here [in Miami], everybody is so fit,” he told the Herald. “It’s like tiny little waist and big boobs, pardon the French. But we have to be really careful about how we go about the casting process. It’s a huge challenge.”
“Magic City” was filmed last year in Miami. According to the Internet Movie Database, the series “centers on Miami mobsters and other characters from Miami Beach in the late 1950s.”
So was Marinella able to find realistic looking extras?
“There’s different places you can go in Miami,” he said. “Little pockets that are very little heard of off the main street path where we find all these amazing figures and bodies, and that’s what we did for ‘Magic City.'”