Info on freckles as relates to skin tone: Freckles.

Also, a map of the world by skin tone: Skin tone.

You'll note that the line between very light skin and the next tone up (which isn't even considered "olive" toned) bifurcates Italy, not quite in half. Northern Italy tends towards much fairer hair, due to the migration of Germanic and Celtic tribes from the times of the Roman Republic on.

Not quite comparable, I lived in Spain for three years and I saw a huge variation in skin tone and hair color from Nordic blonde to darker tones that most folks would have characterized as classic Mediterranean olive skin (often attributed negatively as belonging to "gitanos" or gypsies.) The majority seemed to fall somewhere in between. The ideal, from what I could tell, was relatively pale skin with straight, dark hair. Eye color didn't seem to factor in much. The person I can think of with the most "classic" Spanish looks is Penelope Cruz.

So I finally saw X-Men yesterday. The post-credit sequence showed Apocalypse building a Great Pyramid which would have been c. 2500 BCE, and behind him were the four horsemen, but domesticated horses weren't introduced to Egypt until much later, c. 2000 BCE. Totally bogus!

Scola to the makers of X-men, "Your arguments are invalid!"

I'm probably one of the more freckle-faced posters here, so it's not like I don't think anyone can catch it. And I know the ideal is to cover them up (not that I've ever worn foundation), so I don't think a freckled actress gets in the way of much.

Oh, me, neither. It was just once the subject of freckles came up, first I wondered "how common" and then "how come freckles". I had freckles just about everywhere as a kid, face, arms, even my knees. These days, you can only kind of see them on my arms.

This is kind of totally awesome: every superhero movie, in one four-minute take: [link]

Cary Elwes (why does his face seesaw in puffiness so? I hope it's not health problems, like liver or something--it doesn't look really like weight gain) has written a book about filming The Princess Bride.

Excerpt:

Later, when they were just chatting, they were talking about American television. "I said, 'I love Bill Cosby,' and Rob said, 'You do?' 'Sure I do! I grew up on Fat Albert. In fact, I remember this ..." And then Elwes did a spot-on impression of Cosby's "Hey, hey, hey!" "And Rob said, later on, that was the key, that was the turning point. Had I not done a Fat Albert impersonation, I would probably not be sitting in front of you here today.

II hear if Wallace Shawn wrote one it would be vitriol.

As far as I can tell she's Italian. I don't know how olive they're supposed to be.

Depends on the Italian, and also how people are defining olive.

I'd always, in all my years of devouring cosmetics books, known olive as an undertone (can look faintly greenish, can be pale or deep), not a color depth. With the whole Hunger Games Katniss casting drama, apparently, other people had a different working definition.

[link]

Wallace Shawn: You know, there’s not too much to say about it. I suppose my agent did something unusual in telling me who they really wanted. And telling me that I was the third choice. I was very, very aware that I was not the first or second choice. I mean, ordinarily, agents don’t do that, and I must admit in my case, it did make it hard for me. Because I didn’t get the sense of humor, really, didn’t understand it very well. It’s not my type of humor, so the director had to kind of coach me through everything I did.

It’s by far what I’m best known for on planet Earth. No day goes by without someone commenting on it to me. It turned out to be one of the most beloved films. People had the most astonishing response to it. Apparently by following Rob Reiner, by trying to imitate him—he would do [my lines], and then I would imitate him. And I must have done it adequately, as people compliment me on it on a daily basis.

Let's just say what I heard about Wallace I heard from his time on Eureka (And his next answer starts with :"Well, that, I did very much enjoy." when asked about working with Mr. The Giant which is just a little bit leading). Also, don't have "I LOVED YOU IN T2" be the first thing you say to Joe Morton. Some people just...that's not how they parse their careers.