My previous topic dealing with how I create characters got me thinking. How often have writers seen actors or other personalities and written their characters around them? Or even better, how many of us have ever thought about who we would like to see portray our main characters in a movie or TV show. I know I have… so for those of you who have read my books, I’d like to take a moment to go through who would portray a couple of my characters, namely the primary heroes in each. Let’s take a look, I’ll go in order of when the books were written;

Divinity: Adalyn 
A few names came up over time for this character. The following excerps from the book describe her:
“Her bright blue eyes shined with wonder as she looked up the long staircase of ivory and gold to the massive cathedral at the top. “

“Adalyn nodded as she adjusted her beige maiden’s dress and tightened her sash. The soft cotton tightened around her hips as her hands moved to her hair. She parted it in the middle and made sure that the few loose strands were brushed back behind her ear once again. The blonde strands flowed to her neck and shimmered in the sunlight.”

I also have a concept image that I put together for her:

So who would play her?
Well… at first I thought Katherine Heigl when she was portraying Izzie on Grey’s Anatomy.

However, over time and seeing some of the other roles she plays… given that the role calls for a younger actress, and given some of the other roles I’ve seen her play…
Honestly, I’d cast Chloe Moretz in the role:

Damnation: General Xaphan/Xaphine Lorenzi:
This one… oh man… this one was tough. VERY tough. This is her description in my book:

“Xaphan wore a tattered black outfit that flowed below her knees. It was all she was allowed to keep after being stripped of her sword and armor. Her pale white skin was filthy and scarred. Her wings were missing feathers and covered in blood, most of which was not her own. Her black hair was a mangled mess from weeks of her being too busy to tend to it. She breathed in deeply as her pale blue eyes looked up scornfully at Michael.”

She is also a very capable commander, though she appears young, she does have a very strong, mature albeit vicious presence about her.

I’ve made NUMEROUS concept images of her over time, trying to capture this:

Now I know what everyone is thinking; ‘Why not just cast the model you had portray her?’
Honestly, she’s a very talented model, but I don’t really know her personally, I don’t know her acting abilities or her mannerisms. It’s not enough to simply look the part, you also have to be able to act the part, and maybe she could… I don’t know.

So who would I cast then?
Tough call. At first I thought Natalia Tena  would do a good job. She’s somewhat soft-spoken, but she knows how to fight… though we never see it really in Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. She also very much looks the part.
However, over time I started shifting away from her. Little by little, I started thinking that maybe she wasn’t the best person to play the role.
So who then? Well… not too long later… I saw this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXMdcNWZXaw

Artemesia’s fighting style is very similar to how Xaphan fights, though Xaphan is skilled with several different weapons, not just a pair of daggers. She’s clearly enjoying the battle. The main differences between her and Xaphan are that Xaphan possesses a code of honor, on the battlefield, she can actually overrule Lucifer, and while she enjoys fighting, she views the spilling of her brothers’ and sisters’ blood a terrible waste.

300 Rise of an Empire movie was very lacking on plot and honestly not very good, but admittedly I watch it with some frequency. Why? Because it falls into my ‘Good Villain = Good Movie’ formula. Eva Green steals the movie and is an insane villain, even being a one-dimensional character.

Given how she portrayed Artemesia and given how close that actually is to Xaphan’s personality… and given that Eva Green is one of the few people under 6ft that I find intimidating…

Eva Green would be my choice to play Lucifer’s most trusted General.

(That stare just sends chills down my spine.)

Magnifica: Toby Arrigan:
I admit that I never really thought about this one.
Toby shook his head as he fixed his dark brown hair, “Gishan you’re a dwarf, don’t you have a stone somewhere to bang?”

He’s your average every day college student who happened to get thrust into a disastrous situation. He’s an unremarkable, but kind-hearted person, and is someone who would give a friend the shirt off of his back.
Tough call, but I’d actually have to go with Thomas Dekker after seeing his performance in Nightmare on Elm Street and being a fan of the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Soul Siphon: Mary Jane Kelly:

This one wasn’t tough. In fact my wife came up with the actor that would portray her best. The only obstacle I faced was that this was a living person at one point. There isn’t much on her in the history books, but we know she worked at a brothel, she young, fairly pretty, but stoutly-built.

No one knows her true hair color anymore, that was lost to history. However varying reports based on nicknames and descriptions list that she was either blonde, raven, or red headed. The most popular theory, and one that I happen to agree with is that she was a red head.
So at first, some people brought up her portrayal in From Hell:

Ugh… yeah every time I see her, I think Red Sox underwear and brownies, or an unfunny gross out movie with a guy from the 70s. PASS!

My description of Mary Jane is a little different, given the narrative of my story:
“Even after discovering that she was there, she was impossible to see until she moved. The lack of lighting where she stood cloaked every feature except the curvature of her form. She was little more than a black figure, but as she moved, the nearby light shined on her features. She was slender with extremely fair skin and bright red hair that was long enough to reach below her shoulder blades, and was brushed back to stay out of her face. She had very light freckles that seemed to congregate on her cheekbones and nose just below her eyes. Despite her scowl, the edges of her lips were curved in a way that she almost always had a slight smile on her face. When her lips curled, they caused a small fold in the philtrum under her nose. She was strikingly pretty, even with a disgusted look on her face.”

So then my wife mentions a red head from Game of Thrones. At first I’m like… “Yeah, no. Not Sansa Stark, hell no!”
She then corrects me, saying that there’s another red head featured prominently in the show:

Right age, hair color, right appearance, and given her performance in GOT, right attitude. Rose Leslie would be the person I’d cast without reservation. So good call to my wife on that one.

Soul Siphon Corban McConnel:

I admit that I actually put some thought into this one. He’s strong yet somewhat fragile. He’s not physically tough by any stretch of the imagination and I wouldn’t say he’s a strong, stand-out, lead. The left me with one choice… Nicholas Hoult. His portayals in X-Men and Fury Road make him a good candidate. 

In summation;
Chloe Moretz as Adalyn
Eva Green as General Xaphan
Thomas Dekker as Toby Arrigan
Rose Leslie as Mary Jane Kelly
Nicholas Hoult as Corban McConnell 

So readers, what do you think? For those who have read my stories, who would you cast? Let me know!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

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Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!
Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim