"Something about being projected on a 70 foot screen makes you more attractive and appealing to the opposite sex, which is pretty scary"
About this Quote
Cinema does not just enlarge faces; it magnifies aura, status, and desirability. Jason Biggs, who rocketed to fame through American Pie and the teen-comedy star system, points to a peculiar alchemy: the giant screen turns ordinary human features into icons, and the audience, primed by lighting, music, editing, and marketing, often confuses that spectacle with genuine allure. The observation is playful, but the word scary signals unease with how easily perception can be engineered.
Scale breeds mythology. A 70 foot screen confers scarcity and social proof; only a select few appear there, so they inherit prestige. The halo effect then does the rest: because someone is visible, curated, and applauded, viewers assign them broader attractiveness and virtue. Close-ups simulate intimacy, and narrative arcs give characters traits that bleed onto the actor. Attraction becomes a compound of projection, fantasy, and status cues rather than a response to the person off set. Biggs suggests a dissonance between who he is and who people think he is, a divide especially sharp for a performer associated with sexual comedy where audiences may blur character and actor.
There is also an ethical edge. The inflated appeal can create power imbalances and distort relationships, inviting attention that is not anchored in mutual knowledge but in mediated image. It raises questions about authenticity: if affection increases with screen size, how much of it is yours, and how much belongs to the machinery that made you larger than life? That instability is frightening because it reveals how malleable desire can be under media influence.
The remark captures both a self-deprecating truth about fame and a broader critique of spectacle culture. The cinematic apparatus constructs beauty as much as it records it, and that construction follows actors off stage, shaping encounters in ways that can feel flattering, surreal, and ultimately unsettling.
Scale breeds mythology. A 70 foot screen confers scarcity and social proof; only a select few appear there, so they inherit prestige. The halo effect then does the rest: because someone is visible, curated, and applauded, viewers assign them broader attractiveness and virtue. Close-ups simulate intimacy, and narrative arcs give characters traits that bleed onto the actor. Attraction becomes a compound of projection, fantasy, and status cues rather than a response to the person off set. Biggs suggests a dissonance between who he is and who people think he is, a divide especially sharp for a performer associated with sexual comedy where audiences may blur character and actor.
There is also an ethical edge. The inflated appeal can create power imbalances and distort relationships, inviting attention that is not anchored in mutual knowledge but in mediated image. It raises questions about authenticity: if affection increases with screen size, how much of it is yours, and how much belongs to the machinery that made you larger than life? That instability is frightening because it reveals how malleable desire can be under media influence.
The remark captures both a self-deprecating truth about fame and a broader critique of spectacle culture. The cinematic apparatus constructs beauty as much as it records it, and that construction follows actors off stage, shaping encounters in ways that can feel flattering, surreal, and ultimately unsettling.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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