Kim C: You're right about "ugly" actresses. Ugliness is relative, of course. People who look perfectly average in real life tend to look ugly on movie screens (or at least directors think so) because we are so used to seeing only beautiful people there, especially in romantic roles. The exceptions tend to prove the rule, because there are so few of them:

Minnie Driver is not particularly good-looking, but she is a great actress. She did the most realistic (and moving) crying scene I have ever seen in "Good Will Hunting."

Kerry Fox, who played Janet Frame in "An Angel at My Table." (No doubt, it helped that Jane Campion directed it.)

Janeane Garofalo. She's not bad looking, but she's had to overcome the handicap of being short. I think she'd be MUCH more in demand as an actress if she were tall. Her most famous movie, "The Truth about Cats and Dogs," was ABOUT being unattractive. She also always wears her glasses when she appears on talk shows, which surely doesn't win her any points with agents and directors who happen to be watching. I admire her for that.

The "Rosanne" show on TV broke a lot of stereotypes. It had several less-than-glamorous actresses: Sara Gilbert (Darlene), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Sandra Bernhard (Nancy), and of course Rosanne herself. But then, "Rosanne" was a comedy, and it's easier to get away with being unattractive if you're funny. None of those women has had what I'd call a GREAT career since then.

John Goodman has shown that fat men don't always have to be funny, but he had to pay his dues as a comic actor first.

Heather Matarazzo is (pardon me) homely as a mud fence, but she was great in "Welcome to the Dollhouse," which was about the pain of being an unattractive child.