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BUT EVEN IN a city where plumbers' cracks are suspiciously tanned and hairless, actors still inspire the most intense scrutiny and the wildest rumors. If you've been paying attention to recently published gossip, you'll know that David Arquette has forbidden his wife Courteney Cox from getting surgery; Paris Hilton's droopy left eye is the result of a botched 2001 eye lift; John Cusack so hated the way his neck sagged in 1408 that he had it lifted; and Robert Redford is enjoying the benefits of a "scrotum lift" (sack-tightening is an allegedly hot procedure).

"You'll get an e-mail like, 'Oh my God, don't call actress X in. She just had her lips done. She looks like a freak.' So you don't." Unless you're bored. "Then you might call her in anyway, just to see how freaky she looks"

But, according to the actors we interviewed, before you're celebrated enough to inspire gossip about your testicles, you have to survive the Hollywood "feedback loop," an unofficial system designed to target and correct your physical flaws. Some actors resist surgery for decades; some yield too quickly (and eagerly); but either way, it's easy to get screwed. Too much surgery and you're unemployable. Too little and you're, well, unemployable. The process starts with your first auditions.

"I think I was 20 or 21 when a casting director told me I had too much hip and thigh," confesses an indisputably attractive 27-year-old Latina actress who's still searching for the elusive big break. "I was shocked. I mean, I was very thin. What do you do? Go home and starve yourself—or do you get the lipo?" After six years of feedback, the critique she's received most often is that she's too "ethnic," she says. "They'll tell you they love your look and originality. But then they slowly classify you and compare you, and try to get you to look more like everyone else. It's bizarre. Sometimes I'll be at an audition and realize that the actresses all look exactly the same."

Though she won't discuss the specifics of her own surgery, she concedes that "[a]nyone who comes out to L.A. will eventually get something done. Their teeth, the breast implants, the lips ... if you're really striving to be a part of this business, at some point you succumb." While A-listers will only gossip about people's surgeries, in less exalted Hollywood circles, one's own nipple flaws and cheek-implant anxieties are appropriate small talk. "They all want knee work now, since Demi Moore had it, so that becomes one more thing to do," she says, adding wistfully that she can't afford to contemplate more expensive procedures: "If you can't get the surgery, you can't get the mainstream jobs, the big-money deals everyone wants."

If that sounds like a rationalization, says Greg H., the former casting director, it's not entirely: "TV writer/producers, especially, are notorious for picking actresses with the bigger breasts. I'd bring in amazingly talented, beautiful women to read for a part, and the feedback would be: She's not pretty enough. Which basically meant they didn't want to fuck her."

Actresses who've successfully secured decent film roles counter that appearance is not always a deciding factor. "I've never felt that if I had bigger boobs, I'd get the job," insists an increasingly high-profile film actress in her early 30s. "I've always felt it's more about your talent than the way you look."

The truth is somewhere in between, says Julie Bowen. She likes to tell the story of her first wardrobe tests as the schoolteacher on Ed. Ten outfits failed to pass muster with the producers. "They were always vaguely dissatisfied," she says, "like they couldn't quite put their finger on what was wrong." On a whim, she popped her "chicken cutlet" silicone enhancers into her bra and returned in the very first outfit, a demure twinset. "Suddenly, they're like, 'Now, that's good, that's perfect.'"

THOUGH CASTING DIRECTORS are often blamed for Hollywood's plastic surgery addiction, they deny responsibility for anyone's decision to go under the knife, and most insist they would never suggest surgery to actresses (or actors) directly. "I've been doing this a long time," says veteran casting director Steve Jacobs (Arrested Development, Roseanne), "and that's never come up in a room I've been in." It's not in his interest to promote rampant plastic surgery, he says; the more unreal actors look, the harder it is to cast them.

If any "suggestions" are made, says Greg H., they're conveyed privately to the actor's agent when he or she calls for feedback, in a codified manner that's both frank and veiled: "There's very little editing in that discussion. There's no taboo in mentioning that an actress's eyes look really 'tired,' which is code for 'she could use an eye lift.'" (Similarly, "I don't know what we're going to do with her during the beach scene," means, "Look, she needs implants if she wants bimbo roles.") More than 80 percent of casting directors are women themselves, he says, and many of them are among the most unsparing: "Believe me, they love delivering that kind of news."

Satisfying Hollywood's exacting demands is no easy task, however. Bad work is often more damaging than no work at all. When casting directors confront obvious disasters, says a veteran, they're not above warning one another not to waste their time: "You'll get an e-mail like, 'Oh my God, don't call actress X in. She just had her lips done. She looks like a freak.' So you don't." Unless you're bored. "Then you might call her in anyway, just to see how freaky she looks."

If negative feedback about an actor (especially from major casting directors) starts piling up on the agent's end, it's his job to delicately broach the topic of surgery with his client. "No actor wants to feel they're being treated like a piece of meat," says a former talent agent. "The diplomatic way is to hope that the actor asks you about it. If not, you gently float the idea. Eventually, you might have to say, still very chattily, 'The feedback I'm getting is that your neck is an issue.'"

Actors bring such criticism on themselves, he says, by insisting on auditioning for roles they lack the talent or physical attributes to get: "When you meet a prospective client, you always ask about career goals. Nine times out of 10, she's going to say films. But nine times out of 10, you're thinking soaps."

Of course, it's easy for an established actress, who no longer even has to audition, to start seeing herself as inadequate thanks to the relentless scrutiny of the tabloids: "My women clients complain to me that it's no longer enough just to be beautiful [from the neck up]," a prominent female talent agent says, "because, one way or the other, the tabloids are going to trash them ... their thighs or their cellulite." Increasingly, technology is causing panic, too. With the growing market for high-definition TV—up to 10 times crisper than analog—stars' suddenly glaring imperfections have become so gossip-worthy that HDTV-obsessed websites are issuing best and worst lists exposing the vulnerable, like Brad Pitt ("no gift to women in high-def") or Britney Spears ("looks like she belongs in a biker bar"), while lauding stars like Katherine Heigl, 29, merely for withstanding magnification. "My actor friends pretend they don't notice the difference, but they do," says Bowen. "And, of course, my husband has to have the 60-inch TV. ... God forbid he should miss a single wrinkle. It's enough to make anyone go out and do something with her face."

That's when the real madness begins.

Photos: Rourke, Gustavo Caballero, Getty Images; Rogers, Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images