Author writer's fantasy casting

Been meaning to get back into writing after slacking off due to hard hours at work and to get in the mood thought it would be good to ask. You guys ever picture which (voice) actors might play the characters you write about? Feel like sharing at all?

Yes.

-Lewis Gage (Secret Agent, protagonist): Christian Bale

-Vera Howell (Robot Girl, love interest to Lewis): Olivia Wilde

-Amy Belle (Child thief who can summon a pet velociraptor): Lilla Crawford

-Ethan (Cowboy Cop, the Lancer to Lewis): Samuel L. Jackson

-Samson (Gladiator, Big Guy of the group): Russel Crowe

edited 31st May '15 3:48:37 PM by Protagonist506

I write for the screen, so I kinda have to imagine actors playing my characters.

Not ready to share the character names yet, but here's a few of the actors I'm eyeing for main parts:

• Tanner Thomason
• "Brizzy Voices"
• Keegan-Michael Key
• Thomas Sanders
• Ellary Porterfield

edited 31st May '15 4:22:27 PM by AwSamWeston

I often think about who'd play my characters in a movie but for most of them I'd probably pick someone unknown or relatively unknown that fits the description and could play the part as I wanted it - can't think of many A- (or even B-) List actors I'd pick for my characters.

My focus for actors would be the right look, the right voice and regional accent (or ability to portray it well) and, for most of them, being IRL smokers since most of the characters smoke and nothing annoys me more than seeing non-smokers portraying characters who smoke - they just don't look convincing.

I'd also ensure they all were given extensive training in the skills they're supposed to exhibit throughout the story - from handling firearms to making fire with flint and steel.

I'd want it to be convincing, so actors who look, sound and act right are more a priority than actors who are well known, popular and audience-magnety.

If I were making it into an animated movie, I'd pick Hugh Grant for the voice of either Sir Archibald or James and I'd do Wolfe's voice myself as I'd want to get the right "she'll be right, mate" style of Kiwi accent.

I write a lot more prose than scripts, but I do enjoy "casting" people in my novels.

The problem is, most of my characters aren't white, so I have a VERY limited pool to choose from. One of my black characters is "Taye Diggs if he was in his twenties again," and one of my other casts is about 85% South Asian in a huge amount of ages (they're from a Fictional Country near the Philippines, so I'm thinking they'd be played by Filipinos or other South Asians and Pacific Islanders). So I basically have nobody to cast for that story.

Another story has a hot Chinese-American soldier and I don't really know if my two main choices (Harry Shum Jr. or John Cho) can pull off a soldier in personality. If Ken Watanabe was about forty years younger and if Bruce Lee wasn't dead, then I would give those two a shot. And then I've got his Arab-American squad-mate and I don't even know if there are any prominent Arab actresses around, much less ones who can play soldiers.

Even in Moonflowers where most of the cast is Irish, I still don't know who'd play my Chinese/Filipino/Indian-American family (first and second generations are Chinese, then the brothers married a Filipino and an Asian-Indian, so their kids are mixed), the protagonist's black-Creole friend, or her Blackfoot friend. Then there's the problem of casting my fucking Irish characters, since I ALSO don't know any prominent Irish actors in their twenties who match my characters' appearances.

If Moonflowers ever gets made into a film, John Barrowman is who I have in mind for Aengus Og. But I wouldn't theoretically cast him unless he killed his audition and smashed it to tiny little pieces, because I don't want people to get upset and go "YOU CAST A SCOTS-AMERICAN AS AN IRISH GOD?!" in a story that's drenched in Irish mythology.

Oh, the dilemma of non-white characters, or the wrong kind of white characters.

edited 31st May '15 10:20:15 PM by Sharysa

I know what you mean!

My line up:

African-descent woman about 5'4", in her mid twenties and with a natural cockney accent. Smoker.

Caucasian woman around 5'6", in her mid twenties with a New Zealand accent who can carry off the idea that she's a successful competitive pistol shooter and can ride a motorcycle off-road (stunt doubles? Fuck that noise! I want to show that she's riding the bike.) Smoker.

Caucasian man, 5'10", lean and wiry, in his early thirties, dark hair, British English accent - perhaps RP. Pipe smoker.

Caucasian man, late thirties/early forties, 6' athletic with "aristocratic" bearing, brown hair, able to do an Etonian accent without sounding like a pompous tit or pretentious, must look good in safari jacket and pith helmet. Fluent in German and French. Pipe smoker.

Caucasian man, late thirties/early forties, 5'8" average build, RP British accent/London's West End. Smoker (and able to put up with unfiltered cigarettes).

Caucasian man, aged 20, 5'10" average build, clean cut, blond hair blue eyes. German from around Freiburg region with associated accent. Smoker.

Caucasian man, late forties/early fifties, 5'6" average build, New Zealand accent. Can at least pronounce German and French words. Smoker.

Very few of the above fit the mould of the average A-Lister.

edited 31st May '15 7:42:33 PM by Wolf1066

Another case of my main characters not fitting the usual mold, or in this case, any Earth ethnicity — they're Transplanted Humans who generally pass for various unlikely mixtures on Earth. I figure that the way to work around that, in the billion-to-one chance I become significant enough for a movie adaptation, is to go animated, Animation Age Ghetto be damned. (I've always been a sucker for good animation anyways.) This would make the question one of voice actors, where there's more wiggle room. Nobody comes to mind at the moment, just commenting on a way around what seems a fairly common (if purely theoretical and unlikely) problem.

edited 31st May '15 8:58:04 PM by KillerClowns

I'd commented elsewhere how "female character from somewhere in a Commonwealth" accidentally became a running pattern for some of my characters; I decided to embrace that.

So, for instance, there's a Bengali teenaged girl of Bangladeshi nationality^note Bangladesh being part of the Commonwealth of Nations; her scenes are in Saudi Arabia, and it's hinted she's the daughter of guest workers. Even with Translation Convention removing the need for someone to be fluent in Bengali and Arabic, there aren't many A-listers I can think of to model her off of. (Probably a good thing, since it means I'm free to develop her as needed.)

In another part of that story, there's an Afro-American girl, from Virginia ^note Which is officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, of course. I had no model in mind for her face or her voice, other than a somewhat generic Southern drawl.

For the male characters, who are under no such constraint, I notice I tend to deliberately write characters who wouldn't be A-list material; overweight and pimply, or thin and drawn and with oversized glasses. I'm wondering if this is, to some extent, a subconscious backlash to the movie-star-type wish-fulfillment; it's the girls' stories, they're just along for the ride. (Also, I suspect there's a fair bit of influence from Stephen Maturin in the mix: he's easily the most fascinating character in the Aubrey Maturin series, but his physical description is consistently "squat, scrawny, and indefinably ill-looking".)

Can I... can I just share something with you guys? It was a really personal moment for me. I need a little sympathy.

Not too long ago (maybe a couple of months), riding the high of commissioning my first piece of character art, I realized how handy it was to have references to help the artist see what I was seeing. I'd sent links to clothes before, but because my male main character, Alex, had to do two things - which were to a), be a skin tone I call 'coffee', and b) be hot enough to make the girl living underneath him thinking he was a serial killer in training ditch enough of her fears to skedaddle out on a date with him - I figured I could send a couple of male faces along.

My MMC is native. That's such a side detail, but important because most of the national ves I know (e.g., everyone on that half of my family, everyone they hang out with, everyone else living on the reserve) are that particular caramel shade. So I popped in 'male native', 'native man', and 'aboriginal man', googled away, and found a guy over whom I immediately said, "Daaaaaaaaaaamn."

This native guy was the right skin tone, plus hair and facial features and expression and physique and I was almost scared by how similar it was. Then I clicked on him to see who he was - oh, an actor? Perfect! Let's see how you look in action. What films are you in, good sir?

Oh.

Ohhhhhhh...

One more detail I'd like to slip in: I'm always a little nervous about characters' last names for whatever irrational reason, so while in my story, Alex doesn't actually have one, the working last name I gave him was Marez. Kind of Spanish, I thought, but no worries.

This native actor's name was Alex freaking Meraz.

From Twilight.

I have never even seen Twilight before, but the sucker punch I felt was literally (not literally) dwarfed by this eel of utter NOPENOPENOPE in my gut. I am still caught at times going, "Oh my God. Tartra, you did that," but with your emotional support, I can keep healing and accepting that my MMC is best cast as a werewolf guy from the Twilight series whose actor shares virtually the same - if partially a work-in-process - name.

Sorry - my throat got all cramped from thinking about it again. I'm sure that actor's a great guy and I have literally not found a better representative, but my "Daaaaaaamn"? I'm saying it in a much sadder tone.

Many hugs for you. And congratulations for not seeing Twilight! You aren't missing anything.

Quick note: Describing skin color in terms of food is a pretty sensitive topic for lots of minorities. I'm neutral towards it, but I always make sure not to do it because I know a lot of us feel like it's exoticizing/sexualizing minorities by outright calling them food, especially with women. "Coffee" would probably be equivalent to "wood" or "sand."

edited 1st Jun '15 9:23:21 AM by Sharysa

Haha! Fair point! But here's the thing: my FMC is sexualizing my MMC and treating him as if he's exotic. One of the main things she hears from all the fighting and banging around upstairs is someone screaming about wanting his coffee fix. That, paired with the fact that he's a shade of brown that can be easily compared to a specific way to take coffee, is all the little story elements coming together for her to jump on and tie to him in a very shallow manner. That's to hammer in how blind she is about going along on the date he invites her on: it's purely physical, with a bit of bonus chemistry on the side.

Don't worry: as two minorities in one, I know all about the issue. I'm treating this strategically. My other characters (like my Arabic guy, if we're getting specific about minorities) are described in terms of shades and flushes and tones. I'm also gearing up for a Caucasian character to be later described as the colour of a sugar cookie, just to emphasize her cartoonish sweetness. It's all to reflect on the characters describing those other characters. :) As it should be!

edited 1st Jun '15 12:07:59 PM by Tartra

All this is making me wonder if I should focus more on concrete physical descriptions. I tend toward a sprinkling of details as a general "what you notice at first glance"; additional descripts happen only when someone is actually examined close by another character, or when it's pertinent to the prose. Most of the descripts I use focus on intangibles like poise, or bearing, or air: hard to capture on screen without a very good actor.

Don't forget that you can have more than one description of the character. When it's just orienting the reader, then like you said, give the barest, most relevant facts. When the story slows down to reflect on a character (or on one character towards another character), then you can add in the other details.

I say 'add', because if you start to rewrite them, you'll irritate your readers who now have to reimagine your character.

edited 1st Jun '15 12:16:37 PM by Tartra

Oh, that's awesome!

For appearance, I usually drop a couple of important details right away or I hint at it through names: "Alima Song" really shouldn't be envisioned as a six foot tall blonde girl. Malachy Bray notes that she's some form of Asian but he doesn't want to assume what exact ethnicity, in case she thinks he's rude. That's two ethnicity-markers in one: Malachy notes that Alima's Asian, meaning that he himself is NOT Asian.

I have to admit I don't do this because I worry about mentally typecasting. If you really press me on the issue, then yes, Jeannette Montange is a blonde Cajun French woman in her mid-twenties and based on physical type I should probably cast Katee Sackhoff...

...but I would be much more likely to want to cast Rinko Kikuchi for Jeannette's role because I think she could act it better. And even then I'd be really worried.

I will now strike this from my mental record because even discussing it this much worries me about how I'll write Jeannette next chapter.

edited 1st Jun '15 5:31:35 PM by Night

Yes, Night! Way to go! Finally, someone is talking about acting ability instead of looks! :)

The problem is that people use the "BUT THEY'RE REALLY GOOD ACCCCCCTORS" bullshit way too much when it comes to minorities being whitewashed.

Which is why most minorities hate the idea of "colorblind" casting. Sometimes a French character could be played by Rinko Kikuchi due to her personality, but 95% of the time, a minority character is cast with a white actor. And it's not because of acting ability, it's because the white actor has star power.

This is why I'm so stringent in making sure my characters CAN'T go to "whoever just acts the best" by making sure they have ethnic names and certain appearances.

It's not as simple to say "GO FOR PERSONALITY INSTEAD OF LOOKS." Looks are really important when you're not represented properly in the media.

edited 1st Jun '15 11:17:00 PM by Sharysa

Actually, I was wanting both - they have to look (and sound) the part and be able to portray it convincingly.

I'm bloody certain there are plenty of hopeful - and quite talented - actors all over the world who would jump at the chance to play a role in a movie, so the only real reason for casting the wrong race/looks/nationality is because they want a particular big name or group of big names to act as a draw for the audience.

It's not like the other countries don't have their own television and movie actors to choose from.

If I ever got the funding to make my story into a movie (and I'd make damned sure I had full creative control - if they think my story's good enough to make into a movie, then then it's good enough for me to choose cast) I'd scour the world for people who have the right look, voice and acting abilities. If I wanted someone from Bangladesh, I'd bloody go to Bangladesh and screen test their actors until I found the one who fits the part and can carry the role convincingly.

If the opening credits say "Introducing..." rather than "Starring...", so be it.

Sorry for deleting what I wrote here, since it was off-topic.

edited 2nd Jun '15 12:52:23 AM by HallowHawk

This line of thought is largely self-defeating, however. You're trying to sell your message rather than your story, and nobody's going to come and watch your movie for your message. This drive to sustain the "purity" of your messaging is often a thing that even those who agree with you about a need for diversity are ultimately not likely to care enough about to keep supporting you in the face of mediocre or even merely competent work. In the worst case you end up with a bad movie and your message is rejected or mocked; even in the best case your themes reach fewer people. If you want to make the grand epoch-changing work that reaches everyone, alas, you must temper your ideological desires to actually get it to your audience.

The other thing is, acting traditions are different (if you have an Indian-trained actor in an American movie alongside a bunch of American actors it's at best going to seem a little bit weird; if you've watched a lot of British TV you'll notice a distinctly different flavor; could go on?) around the world and don't always mesh. Assuming there are acting traditions; trying to cast real Yemeni actors at the moment is probably not a wise objective. How many actors do you suppose Bangladesh has anyways? How many of them will match what you're looking for once you've filtered by general physical type and sex? You could end up with a very small pool indeed, and who knows what'll be in it.

Writing is different. You can write whatever you want; you are god. In movies, you are not god. There are valid criticisms to be made; there is no excuse in modern cinema for not casting a black actor if the source work had a role that was black, not in the post-The Wire world. But in general one must temper one's objectives to one's means far more in the making of film.

edited 2nd Jun '15 4:00:55 PM by Night

Which generally ends up perpetuating the Hollywood aesthetic of anorexic chicks and buff blokes, where "ugly" = put on glasses and do your hair in a silly way.

Interesting. I give some thought as to what actors or voices would suit my characters. Ethnicity, authenticity, making sure they would be able to play the role in a believable way or be given the same training as the character to fit better.

As far as concrete physical descriptions go, I cover that a little below in that some of my characters don't have a firm actor in mind. Gary for example, some may get Martin Sacks or Ditch Davey, others may think more Matt Passmore, all Australian actors who played detectives. I certainly look to those and others as a basis of influence and way to try and flesh out the character. Peter on the other hand, the way the character began was an abstract but as work progressed modified to better fit the role of who I envision playing him.

Anyway here's a partial list from my main work.

• Ruby Parker - Eliza Dushku: The character is a social worker doing an interview for Internal Affairs and later helps the police when they inform the family of a murder victim. In some ways she is kind of like how Faith turned out late in the series and the comics. However this was apparently a Star-Derailing Role as Dushku had always been typecast as the Bad Ass Action Girl. I think she has the acting chops for a more dramatic role where the character has a little street smarts but is no Slayer.

• Gary Locke - Ditch Davey: Detective Locke is kind of a blank slate in that we get enough of his character but the reader can more slot in who they picture him as. Typecasting I know but Jonesey of Blue Heelers is who I picture him as.

• Peter Marsters - James Marsters: The Senior Constable and sometimes partner to the main character went through a number of changes to be less of a straight copy of one character and more their own person. Then I heard about how uncomfortable Marsters was with doing rape scenes and thought playing the role would be something he is against, but playing a cop, working against that sort of thing even if it isn't actually addressed as such, might be something he would do a right proper job for, and based the role for him.

• Jordan Evan (I changed the character name from Jessie) - Karen Dyer: Sheva in Resident Evil 5 comes across as a nice, kind, woman who can and does get the job done. Jordan is by no means an Expy but playing the game and playing Sheva I think Dyer would suit the role well.

• Enrica Goss - Sasha Grey: Yes I know who she is and no I did not choose her for her more well known works. Goss is another police officer who causes conflict through seemingly not caring about smaller crime or the needs of the victim. I see the role of Viola from Saints Row: The Third as an influence in creating that destabilizing element and see it as a challenge of how to develop such a character.

• Gloria Marule - Paul Patterson - Lindsey Stirling - Hugh Jackman: This is hard because for one Gloria is a transsexual and s/he would be seen briefly as both male and female, but mostly appears in flashback. For another I wanted Paul to be a good model or idea of what any decent Australian guy would be, while Gloria is a gorgeous looking woman who you would not pick for...that, and still retain the traits of the male. Thus Hugh Jackman for the male and Stirling for the female, probably more voice work or appearance as for both to be the same person in a live role...probably wouldn't be compatible.

• Catherine Garner - Kimberley Brooks: The girlfriend of the main target of a vicious gang of youths is also aboriginal and serves as a source of support as well as a slight clue that the victim is not acting out his hostilities out of racism. Based on the characters she has played (Ash of Mass Effect, Valerie of Trauma Center, Oracle/Batgirl) she shows to not only be able to play the type of character I have in mind but the range to have that hardness and softness as the story demands.

Now, for everyone who's said they're picking an actor because that person is the most likely to act your character out properly, what are you basing it on? A particular movie? A bunch of movies? Their entire career?

Myself, I try and look at all factors. What roles do they show talent in? Do I like the actor or actress? Would they do a good job? Have they got similar looks and personality to the character or played a similar character? In a little more detail...

Why Eliza Dushku? I named the character Ruby based off the character from Once Upon a Time because I thought she was so cool and I could have the same actress in Meghan Ory, but that would just be cheap. So who else could play her? Well let's look at some of the characters Dushku had played: in her later appearance in Angel and the final episodes of Buffy she takes on a more mature, mentoring role that would be expanded on considerably in the comics. In some of her other works there are signs of this as well such as Bring It On, that Hidden Heart of Gold quality I see in WET of all places and the actress had been kind of typecast in playing Faith regardless of the work. Now Ruby is no Faith, she may have a little of her street smarts and that's about it. She's interviewing a police officer about their actions for a Ethical Standards investigation and in the story itself she is with the police when they talk to the brother, his wife and daughter of a murder victim, she has to console the family, look after the little girl, real meaty drama. I think Dushku has the acting chops for the role and could borrow a little from Faith, in particular, were she to play such a role.

Why Ditch Davey? Easy, a little Typecasting on my part, he played Evan in Blue Heelers and another detective in one of the Underbelly films, and while Gary is more of a blank slate with no firm actor in mind the actor and the characters he played would make him a good choice.

Why James Marsters? Again Peter began as more of a blank slate that most actors, particularly one who played police before, could play. He had a little bit of Heelers, a little bit of Underbelly, a little [[The Shield, NYPD Blue, Law & Order,'' essentially he could be any cop you see in a police series. Then I was digging up info on Buffy one time and the topic came up about the Spike rape scene. Turns out Marsters was so upset, so uncomfortable with it that he had it in his contract never to do another one. I read that and thought, "Really? Is that right? That's certainly interesting. Let's use that and modify my character a bit to have a little of the similarities to the actor." I loved that he did that, I'm a big Spike fan his negative traits notwithstanding, a big Marsters fan even bigger now that I read that, if there's a work he does I'd certainly check it out and all the time in modifying the character I had in mind that sure Marsters would not do a rape scene...what about a role where if it is not directly involved or he's investigating, speaking or acting out against it where the character odds are would come across it at some point or another? Hmmm? Given his feelings about it would that be a role he would do?

Why Karen Dyer? The Jordan character was around for quite some time before RE 5 came out, and in playing it, seeing Sheva in it I thought, "That's not Jordan, but I can certainly see the similarities." Okay Jordan has darker skin, pigtails, she's aborigine and not African, one's a cop the other's a soldier, ect, but the similarities are there. Sheva is a sweetheart like Jordan is. The voice, the tone, the manner, that would work. And Dyer I believe is an Aussie so that's a plus.

Now there's another character or voice actress who might fit the role, another dark skinned, aboriginal even, Sydney police officer, from another zombie game. I played right through the series, read the book and prequel comic and gave it a lot of thought, and had come to one conclusion: Nope, no, nope, no way, nope, not gonna happen, nope, uh uh, nope, and also not in a million years. Jordan is very much the anti Purna. For one she worked in Geelong which is similar to the fictional setting of Mount Thomas rather than Kings Cross (nothing suggests Purna did either but her character and backstory is straight out of The Golden Mile,) the look and voice is completely stereotype and wrong, completely wrong personality based on Peta Johnson's portrayal, most if not every trope would be the complete opposite, you name it and odds are Jordan and Purna are nothing alike whatsoever. See, I told you I try and give thought to who is right for the role.

Why Sasha Grey? Well I looked up the...ahem, actress herself rather than the roles she played, and based on Viola if the nastiness was toned down and based on the woman herself I think she has the looks and personality to play Enrica. I would have no idea if she played a copper, maybe, if she did I kind of doubt it would be accurate.

Why Lindsey Stirling? I know, I see a lot of transsexuals, a lot of them, and some of them would have been fine, would have been good, great, indistinguishable. I picked Stirling mainly for personal reasons, she has not quite the look I had in mind but I think she's an absolute sweetheart like the character, personally, she overcame depression so with that in mind if she would do such a role she is more than welcome to it.

Why Hugh Jackman? Again I think the actor himself is a sweetheart and that is what I am going for with Paul Patterson and he is a well known Australian actor, we know he's an Aussie, he's a bloke who does manly roles, and I feel that he would be a good choice for the portrayal of the male side even if it might not exactly work in a live role.

Why Kimberley Brooks? Ash is a Bruiser with a Soft Center, Catherine does not have the bruiser part but she is a caring person, a romantic, loving person. Other roles Brooks has played match the character, we look at Valerie and she's a good match for the character, Oracle is caring, concerned, same with Batgirl which makes sense as they are the same character. So she has the experience, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to tone down the hard edges of characters played previously.

Gee, thanks for insinuating I'm a racist just because I said acting ability should be taken into account, Sharysa. Seriously, thank you. By doing so, you've convinced me that I should never take things like ability or personality into account when deciding with whom to work.

On a side note, how do I block messages from a certain user? (An ignore feature)

edit: Scratch that. I'm leaving. I wouldn't continue spending time with someone with such a bad attitude as Sharysa in real life, and I'm not going to do the same here. Seriously, this is all I posted:

"Yes, Night! Way to go! Finally, someone is talking about acting ability instead of looks! :)"

How on Earth can any decent or even sane person respond to that with such hostility? I mean, my God, seriously. You can try and excuse it by saying I need to have thick skin and the internet is full of *****es or whatever, but that doesn't excuse it. Baseless, false accusations like that are morally disgusting, and you should be ashamed, Sharysa.

edited 6th Jun '15 11:06:57 PM by mrazlove