Casting the romantic lead

~ Meg

Oh this is a very silly post… I have written before about how I ‘see’ the stories I write as films playing in my mind. I’ve often wondered if maybe they would make better screen plays than novels. Television miniseries or something. Trust me I don’t have any illusions of them becoming big Hollywood films or anything…

One of the devices I use to help me see the action in my head is to cast actors as the characters in my story. For example, in Breaking Bread, the roles of Maya, Olivia, Leo Donovan, and Detective Jack Staley I’ve cast the following:

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Rachel Wieze
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Jennifer Garner
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Bradley Cooper
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Jon Hamm

For some reason, I’m not satisfied with my initial choices for the characters of Brad and Juan Paolo and it’s nagging at me that I can’t see them in their roles. So, my friends and loyal readers I would like to ask:  Who do you ‘see’ playing Brad in the screen version of Breaking Bread. How about Juan Paolo?

 

Published by Meg

Easily amused, never bored and constantly distracted. My creative pursuits include writing, drawing, painting and photography.

52 thoughts on “Casting the romantic lead”

  3. I do all of this, too. I’ve posted many times about the movies playing in my head, too… I think it started in one of my first ever blog posts!

    I can’t remember at the moment what description you originally gave Brad… Hair color? Length? Or did you not specify? My memory of those details has failed. But… I won’t make any suggestions. One time someone gave me a suggestion… then the suggested guy was all I could picture… but it was totally the wrong guy to me. I still haven’t gotten over it! I think it’s also why I’ve never posted any of my “casts”… I have them for myself but I want readers to have the picture their minds create. I don’t want to create a picture that messes with their vision… because that happened to me. And yes, I do realize I’m waaaaay over thinking this! 😀

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  4. Interesting way to think of the characters. One of the writers in our Tuesday group has photos and a catalog of actors that play out his roles. Whenever he’s in doubt about t what they’re thinking, wearing etc, he checks his photos. I know playwrights who admit to writing specific roles for specific actors (m&f). However: when I read I build my own pictures in my mind. That means that seeing your version of Maya, for example, conflicts with my version of Maya. I find that confusing as I don’t see her that way at all. Great topic for discussion, though. The same thing happens when we change books to films … which came first (in our individual experience) the book or the film? How does it change our reading perspective? We could put together a course / workshop on this.

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    1. Whoops! I hope I didn’t ruin it for you! I understand what you mean… I don’t like when I see a film before I read the book for that very reason. I like to imagine the characters for myself! This would be a good topic for a writer’s workshop.

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  5. Interesting Meg! I’ve done the same thing with my Stories. Most recently trying to find people I think look right in the roles of the Goddesses in The Pantheon stories. But even after finding that perfect picture of someone, my heart always still says, “close enough”

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  7. For some reason I don’t really picture people’s faces when I read. I have a vague body in my head but nothing specific. I’m weird though. I have cast a couple of my stories though. It helps me with descriptions because I’m absolute crap at them. Mostly because I don’t see things like that I guess. But I like Luke Pasqualino for JP, just because I like him.

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    1. He’s cute! I had to look him up. I had originally picked out this French soccer player but I wasn’t feeling it. The characters I pick are really guidelines, not exact matches but types for my characters. Except Jon Hamm, he’s my detective!

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      1. He was in the BBC Three Musketeers. Is JP young? Because there’s another cutie in that cast who is older. I can’t remember how old the characters are. I like Jon Hamm, too.

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      1. Quite the contrary Meg, I love Rachel Weisz. She’s gorgeous and very talented. Now you say dark hair and eyes, I get it. Probably just me and my hopeless crush on Amy Adams.

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  10. This is funny…I see that Giroud is mentioned, you have to check out the Paddy Power (an Irish bookmaker) game analysis of Arsenal (all it talks about is how handsome he is, his face, his flair etc, its a guy who does it). Any ideas for Tempting Fate?

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