A few weeks ago, in “Casting Dreamsnake,” I asked for input on an imaginary cast for an imaginary movie of Dreamsnake, for a contribution to Marshal Zeringue’s blog My Book, the Movie. The essay is up and running now. Commenting isn’t available at My Book, the Movie, but you can comment here. I’m interested in your reactions to the casting suggestions. I’m pretty satisfied with Emily Rios as Snake, Matthew Gray Gubler as Arevin, and Parminder Nagra as Merideth, and my friend Marilyn’s suggestion of Edward James Olmos as the Mayor is wonderful.
I realize that I didn’t cast either Gabriel or Alex. Suggestions?
And though I thought I’d found the perfect Melissa, I saw the actress, Abigail Breslin, on tv right after I finished the My Book, the Movie essay, and OMG she’s all grown up. Given that I don’t, in fact, have a time machine (despite being an SF writer), it’s back to square one for casting Melissa.
If you haven’t read Dreamsnake and have no idea what I’m talking about, Book View Cafe is serializing it, one chapter per week, or you can buy the complete book in eBook form. It’s a pretty good book — you might like it.
—Vonda
Chapter One of Dreamsnake, “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” is available free at Book View Café.
Abigail’s link is a 404. And I’m appalled to see that there is a Starmeter in existence, guaranteed to give all these poor talented, fragile performers serious depression. Don’t pay any attention, Abigail! Dropping 11% in a week isn’t bad — you’ll be right up there next week!
On the other hand, you’ve got some pretty good characters lined up! I still want Jaye, but he’s probably too old for the role. I have decided that John Barrowman, with brown contacts, could play Cal in BET ME, and I think I’d hand him the book if I met him. You need to get one of these people interested in the story — because sometimes getting a 10 grand option is a stepping stone to the future.
Yeah — you gonna dream? Dream big!
Kathi, thanks for the good catch on the link — it’s fixed now.
I wonder what it is about human nature that wants everything compared and judged? (As with the starmeter.)
One big problem with a lot of ratings systems is that they average the ratings, so, say, a book with a lot of high ratings and a lot of low ratings (which would indicate to me that it was at least interesting — the author had tried something and maybe it didn’t work, or worked for some people and didn’t work for others) will look exactly the same as a book with a solid C average, which is probably conventional and aggressively mediocre.
Vonda
I cast movie stars in my books all the time. When I wrote my last series I carefully chose actors to keep in mind for their looks and “type”. It was tremendously helpful for me in characterizing and planning the series in advance, because I also collage my books in advance, and the available photos online made it easy for me to get pix of my characters in different moods. Plus it gave me even more ideas about the characters.
Fraud cop Jewel Heiss was Drew Barrymore, con man Clay Dawes was Owen Wilson, and English earl turned incubus Randolph Llew Carstairs Athelbury Darner, third Earl Pontarsais, was Hugh Jackman.
Jen, cool cast. And Hugh Jackman as an incubus, hubba hubba!
Vonda
My sister, bless her heart, point out that the link to Parminder Nagra’s picture in the My Book, the Movie post goes to her imdb entry rather than to the picture I meant to link it to, which is
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3602946816/nm0619406
Vonda
The first chapter of Dreamsnake, “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” is available for free at Book View Cafe:
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Dreamsnake