Casting Your Characters

[TheIT]

Do you ever pick out actors/actresses you'd like to see play your characters? I've got a "dream cast" in mind for the characters in my novel, but I'd need a ouija board and a time machine to assemble them (some have died, and some I need from twenty years ago). It helps me to visualize my characters if I somehow attach them to a real person. Anyone else?

[sassandgroove]

I cut out pictures from magazines or download them. But I do it more for the look, to help me describe my characters, so they don't all have brown hair and brown eyes etc, ummm, like me. I hang them on the wall where I write. Some pics are for the person, this is what my char looks like. SOme are for the mood, maybe for a scene in the story, or it reflects my characters trait somehow. I also have 3x5 cards with the char name on top, their age, their eyecolor, hair, etc and stuff like fave food, so I don't have to go searching through the text or refer to her peircing blue eyes in one scene then have her say she likes Van Morrison because she is a brown eyed girl in another. :)

[Summerwriter]

I cut out pictures from magazines or download them. But I do it more for the look, to help me describe my characters, so they don't all have brown hair and brown eyes etc, ummm, like me. I hang them on the wall where I write. Some pics are for the person, this is what my char looks like. SOme are for the mood, maybe for a scene in the story, or it reflects my characters trait somehow. I also have 3x5 cards with the char name on top, their age, their eyecolor, hair, etc and stuff like fave food, so I don't have to go searching through the text or refer to her peircing blue eyes in one scene then have her say she likes Van Morrison because she is a brown eyed girl in another. :)

You are a bit like me. I must admit I have some pictures of some actresses and actors. But I will not publish them, no way. Those pics are only for my private use so I could remember the face of my characters.

[psharmon]

I use pictures, as well. I also will use them for the house, or rooms that I describe. I keep a bound notebook and paste the pictures on paper so everything is organized by room. If I see a picture of a room, person, or neighborhood that I like, I will cut it out and keep it for use in another story.

I even have pictures of cute little animals I may use!!!

[Jaycinth]

Yes. I confess that I cast my novel. Now some of the actors/actresses are dead and others are too old to play the characters. SIGH::::::::::::::::::::::

[My-Immortal]

Do you ever pick out actors/actresses you'd like to see play your characters? I've got a "dream cast" in mind for the characters in my novel, but I'd need a ouija board and a time machine to assemble them (some have died, and some I need from twenty years ago). It helps me to visualize my characters if I somehow attach them to a real person. Anyone else?

Unless the movie of your book was done similarly to the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. If memory serves me at all - the villainous character was portrayed using a digital version of a youthful Orson Wells (and if memory doesn't serve me correctly, I apologize...).

As for your question, yes, I sometimes think of certain actors/actresses that I would like to see play my characters. It's also fun to hear what others think after they've finished reading the book.

Take it easy -- and keep writing. :)

[peer54]

I use pictures, too. I usually use paintings done by Royo and other fantasy artists but magazine pics sometimes do it. Giving my characters a face helps me visualize events as they unfold.

When I find the perfect picture, I make it the desktop on my computer so my main character is staring accusingly at me everytime I procrastinate (like right now). When I get frustrated, I spend time staring at the pic and wondering what the character is thinking. I've been known to grumble at the pics and threaten to shorten his or her life if a chapter isn't going the way I thought it should.

[debraji]

Not Orson Welles--Lawrence Olivier.

I took an actor, once, who usually plays a hero, and used his looks and manner to help create the villian of a short story. The interesting thing was watching him evolve and take on his own personality as the story developed.

[blacbird]

This is a more useful technique, at least for me, than it may seem to others. My current WIP, rough draft about half done, involves the misadventures of two seedy conmen frequenting the American frontier prior to the Civil War, circa 1850. One is fairly old, the other considerably younger. I keep visualizing Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks, and it seems to help me capture the voices I want in dialogue, as well as other character quirks.

Of course, I can't afford either one. But since this is yet another of those unclassifiable pieces of work that won't fit a genre box, it has equal chance for publication acceptance with all the other stuff I've got. Which is zero. So I guess I won't worry overmuch about paying them.

bird

[My-Immortal]

Not Orson Welles--Lawrence Olivier.

YES! Thank you! After I wrote that post I thought I had it wrong but then I couldn't find the movie and when I did it didn't list his name on the outside box cover and I didn't have a chance to watch it....LOL.

Thanks for correcting my faulty memory (now I can sleep!). :)

[Yeshanu]

I have some of my characters cast. I know who Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler are going to play... :)

Oddly enough, though, I haven't cast either the heroine or the hero. They mustn't have been born yet, or else they aren't famous yet.

[Jamesaritchie]

I cast my characters, but not from actors. My characters are friends, family, and a great many people I've known over the years.

[cwfgal]

I guess I'm the exception here because I don't cast my characters. In fact, when asked who would play so-and-so in my books, I struggle to come up with someone. My characters are individuals made up of bits and pieces of people I know but resembling no one in particular.

Beth

[Birol]

I've been asked this question before and it's always puzzled me. My characters are real, living breathing people with lives and looks and histories and personalities all of their own who just happen to live in my head. The only one who could play them accurately would be them. And, unless they somehow escaped from my head -- always a possibility -- I would never be able to find pictures of them in a magazine or elsewhere.

[maestrowork]

Ditto.

[ANNIE]

got to say I agree with the above two posters. I'm a artist as well as a writer and always illistrate my characters. they are induviduals and I never know what they look like until their portraits are complete.

[maestrowork]

Let me just augment by saying that I've been trying to adapt my novel to a screenplay, and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out who could play my leads... Can't think of anyone! The closest I could think of who "may" be able to play the lead character is Dean Cain (physically), but even he is not a good fit.

[Mistook]

There are actors that spring to mind for many of my characters, but as many have said, they wouldn't or couldn't play them in a movie.

It seems like in my wildest dream, this book couldn't become a movie until at least 2015, so there's no use even wondering who would play the roles, but I think I'd like unknown, or little known actors to do it anyway.

[thewritingbug]

I do the same as most of you. It helps me to have a visual of what the characters look like. I do the same with certain rooms in the house too. It's easier for me if I can picture everything in my mind. Makes it seem more real.

[Maryn]

I'm split. Sometimes I cast a specific actor as he or she looked at a specific time in life, or in a specific role, and other times my characters are faceless. I don't think either group is better rounded or more complete as written.

I've often wondered how Rutger Hauer felt when he learned Anne Rice, who he had never met, mentally cast him in her vampire novels--and later in her BDSM novels. Flattered, creeped out, flabbergasted, aghast... (I read that since going public with her inspiration, they have met. Boy, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall!)

Maryn, whose present main character has no face (although several supporting players do)

[scfirenice]

Nicole Kidman with darker red hair.

Orlando Bloom, only if he lays the role naked.

[Sage]

I guess I'm the only one who pictures my characters animated some of the time. So the fact that to me some of the characters resemble anime characters... is that weird?:Shrug:

[scarletpeaches]

But Sage, you can't be a writer unless you're weird - didn't you know? :D

[Sage]

But Sage, you can't be a writer unless you're weird - didn't you know? :D

Actually, I've always suspected this :)

[Jamesaritchie]

Nicole Kidman with darker red hair.

.

I have frequently imagined Nicole Kidman with red hair (I'm a sucker for redheads), but it has nothing at alll tyo do with my writing.

[KelseyF]

I cast my characters. Though that may be because I'm making the transition from screenwriting to novels. For my children's adventure series, I've been keeping a notebook with everything from people (or pieces of their faces), places, and articles.

[Elincoln]

I don't think I could ever cast anyone as my characters. I always see them either animated or in comic book style. They all have their individual appearances and traits, it's hard to think what actor would be good as what. Now voices are different. After watching a movie or cartoon, I do imagine a certain character having a specific style voice.