So, let’s say I get published. And I talk with a production company like Icon or Plan B or something (Plan B is cursed by the way… if you sign with them to do a movie, you get the curse. What’s the curse? You have to put Brat Pitt in the movie.)
And they say, “Let’s go ahead. Let’s make a movie of this. Who do you want in it?”
My answer then is, “uhhhh…..”
I don’t know many modern actors. I tried, a few years ago, to get a whole bunch of movies on the pay per view or whatever.. back when I owned a TV. For instance, they redid one of my favorite really bad movies, “Assault on Precinct 13”.
And made it worse. I never finished it.
There was some movie about a guy who offered a million dollar reward to anyone who broke him out of prison. And… it was so bad, that’s right about when I stopped watching it.
There was King Kong. Never finished it.
All those movies I wasted $3 on. Terrible. Never finished any of them.
So, what actors do I know today? Um… almost none.
Who could play Carpenter? Someone a little under average height, very tough, commanding presence, knows martial arts, and… can act.
Wow, just ran out of names.
Who could play McKinney? Deep voice, dark-skinned black man, receding hair line… Huh. No clue. What’s the guy who was in the first Dawn of the Dead doing nowadays?
I guess some authors visualize, “This is Clint Eastwood in this scene.” I don’t. When I write, the character tends to come to life. I’ve mentioned I borrowed someone’s appearance for Lynch, one of the villains in my book.
But when I write them… nope. not based on anyone. I even had to ask my wife what Yossi looked like! She found a picture, emailed it to me. “That’s Yossi.”
Yup. She’s right. To me, it’s not so much what my characters LOOK like. That’s incidental. It’s what they feel (primary) What they do (secondary), and what they say (tertiary).
Now, if Icon or Plan B can put actors to my characters… great. I just don’t know actors anymore to say, “Oh, yes. Kirk Acedevo would be perfect for that.” (I just know he got top billing in Band Of Brothers – don’t know who he is).
