Typecasting

[bloodyrosemccoy]

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National Day (Iraq)

 

I don’t think I’m the only person who does this: when I write a story, I have a tendency to “cast” the characters—I pick actors, other characters I like, people I actually know, what-have-you to play the characters in my stories.* Sure it’s fun, but it also serves a purpose for me: it helps keep all my characters from turning into two people.

 

And the fun thing about casting for stuff like this is that you can make some seriously weird choices, which would never be possible in non-speculative fiction.

 

Well, a few days ago I realized how very odd my casting choices have become when I realized who was playing one of those damn throwaway characters who stuck around demanding her own story.  Dweijidŕ is an arhode (fuzzy, bipedal, four-armed, predatorial as all hell), a former cop who became a soldier and then later wound up at loose ends doing mercenary work. She likes reading old epics, shows a dismissive genius with languages, and could tear even other female arhodes apart if she felt like it, and she often does feel like it, but she also has a distaste for murder, if not for property damage.

 

And she is played in my head, flawlessly … by Ron Perlman.

 

God, I love what I do.

 

*Granted, given the stories I write, a lot of these are in voice or even essence only. I tend to populate my worlds with the things from Jim Henson’s workshop, so that the workshop itself would most likely be hired to do a third of my characters, and only a third would be diverse actors. That last third, of course, would consist entirely of Doug Jones swathed in prosthetics and standing in front of a greenscreen.

Comments

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

I typecast people on the internet I've never met. I don't mean to, it just happens. I'll be reading my flist and BOOM! Bette Midler! Or BOOM! Jared Leto!

You, however, I have not. Other people on my flist come to mind very easily, you're a good mix of lots of things. No one actress (or actor, for that matter) comes to mind, though traits from some come through. And you'd probably kill me if I tried to say you're all Mirina Sirtis, yes?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, forgot to respond to this, but I must say: I WOULD TOTALLY KILL YOU.

Nah, I think I could handle being played by Marina Sirtis, as long as I get better writers than Troi got. (*aliens on viewscreen unleash streams of curses and threats at Picard* "I sense hostility, Captain!")

I do the involuntary casting with some people, but it's not always with famous people. I see you, but I don't actually have a name for the person playing you ...

[nobleplatypus]

Doug Jones rocks! I saw him at the "Pan's Labyrinth" premier in Uptown and he was hilarious. So tall! So gangly! So impossibly in perfect control of his movements!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I have been in awe of Doug Jones for a while, and here's why: I saw a preview for Pan's Labyrinth that had El Hombre Palido moving his eyeball hands around, and I sat bolt upright and said, "My god, THAT'S THE SAME ACTOR WHO PLAYED ABE IN HELLBOY!"

"How the hell do you figure that?" said my friend. "You can't see his face in either one!"

"His hands," I explained, trying to explain with movements of my Mickey-Mouse fingers. "DId you see the way he moves them? It's DEFINITELY the same guy."*

I had to look him up just for that. If I can recognize you when you're covered in makeup BY THE WAY YOUR HANDS MOVE, you deserve some kind of laudation.


*I can even tell when they're using one of the mechanical pinky-bending hands instead of Jones's in Hellboy.

[alietf.livejournal.com]

I cast all of my characters, if I can XD It's a tic.

[tay421.livejournal.com]

I cast my characters, too... sometimes. XD I haven't casted the majority of them, mostly the ones that have nicely settled personalities. However, I picture my worlds as more like... traditionally drawn cartoons as opposed to actors in prosthetics (which, given the nature of my character designs, it'd have to be either that or CGI-- very well done CGI), so I mostly just think of their voices.

[piper-lee.livejournal.com]

I didn't know he played el Fauno AND the crazy chill'n-eatin' eye-hand monster. :) I love that movie to death.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

AND he studied so hard to learn how to speak his lines in Spanish and then they dubbed him anyway, but it meant his lip sync was spot on!

Yeah, they were a pair of GORGEOUS character designs. God damn, that's a magnificent movie. Now I want to watch it again.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I write with no idea for the actors, but for how I'd cast the movie or ask for the actors to be played. For example, in my Sleeping Beauty novel, the person who would "play" young 1900s Faith (as least until she's married) would also play Modern Faith, so that Rebecca really does see her as her younger sister when she wakes up. A little like Little Miss and her granddaughter in Bicentennial Man.

And whoever played Gail--the MC in my newly finished novella--would HAVE to look black but light skinned, so as to look mixed.