Do you ever ‘cast’ your characters?

Quick question for fellow writers: do you mentally cast actors for your characters? You know, just in case your story is singled out by one of the Hollywood giants, or perhaps BBC, or Netflix, or whatever...

And if so, which way round do you do it. I mean actor first, or character first?

I tried the exercise recently. It's definitely character first for me. Anyway, it turned out to be far more entertaining than I expected.

Curious how others approach this (if at all).

I castrate them instead.

I always do character first. It makes it easier to image them as real characters and people rather than trying to imagine if an actor could actually play them.

Alski said:

I castrate them instead.

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Fine choice of words.

Alski said:

I castrate them instead.

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I laughed so loud that my dog sent me a frowning look...

Representing_Tromba said:

I always do character first. It makes it easier to image them as real characters and people rather than trying to imagine if an actor could actually play them.

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Thanks for the response. So basically the same as myself.

This question is too ambitious for me. I can't imagine my fiction being adapted into Hollywood or Netflix. But I'll put that aside for now.

My short answer is... I'll look for actors/actress who fit my characters, considering their designs use real-world references.

For example, I'll cast a French actress for the first main female protagonist in a rose dress; and a Japanese actress for the main antagonist in a black and white kimono.

Eldoria said:

This question is too ambitious for me. I can't imagine my fiction being adapted into Hollywood or Netflix. But I'll put that aside for now.

My short answer is... I'll look for actors/actress who fit my characters, considering their designs use real-world references.

For example, I'll cast a French actress for the first main female protagonist in a rose dress; and a Japanese actress for the main antagonist in a black and white kimono.

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Oh, you never know what might happen... Thanks for your response.

Casting characters to me is like saying Imma grow up to be princess when I was 4.

AliceMoonvale said:

Casting characters to me is like saying Imma grow up to be princess when I was 4.

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And did you grow up to be a princess?

LeslieLevendale said:

And did you grow up to be a princess?

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I'm on an obscure writer's forum. I'll let you ponder that. lmao

AliceMoonvale said:

I'm on an obscure writer's forum. I'll let you ponder that. lmao

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Say no more... You're a Princess in disguise... I won't blow your cover, your Highness...

No, because star power is overrated.

Not a casting thing, at all. But I sort of had Rutger Hauer in mind, for this one important side character in one big story. It will go up eventually. The same character was influenced by "Stee Jans", if anyone knows that reference. But other things went into him as well. But for looks and a modified delivery, yeah, I could have seen a middle aged Rutger do him justice. The character started out though, a certain limited way, and I imagined him over time into more. Fortunately that went on before his character started seeing use.

LeslieLevendale said:

Quick question for fellow writers: do you mentally cast actors for your characters? You know, just in case your story is singled out by one of the Hollywood giants, or perhaps BBC, or Netflix, or whatever...

And if so, which way round do you do it. I mean actor first, or character first?

I tried the exercise recently. It's definitely character first for me. Anyway, it turned out to be far more entertaining than I expected.

Curious how others approach this (if at all).

Click to expand...

Even as a thought-exercise, I don't typically spend time with this kind of thing, because even in the infinitesimal chance of such a thing actually happening with my fiction, I'd probably tell most of those mainstream sources to either fuck off, or would ensure that I have full oversight and veto authority on anything, and everything, due to the abysmal quality of just about every major production of late.

However, with the question in mind, I'm taking a couple of minutes right now to cast a couple of the characters from The Elarian Chronicles in particular, with the focus on Voice-Roles as the series is better suited for an animated or cgi feature than a live-action one. For live-action, the roles will be even harder to fill.

I could see either Robert Carlyle or Tom Hiddleston playing the role of Lucius Argentius, and whoever doesn't likely would fill the role of "The Jester." Given their past roles and performances, I'm quite sure they would be up to the task of doing the character justice.
As for the role of Morrigan, that one is a bit trickier to cast, but I'd probably give the role to Sophia Lillis.
Droskar and Rowan would likely go to Jason Momoa and/or Chris Hemsworth.
For Sylvia, I'd probably cast Laura Bailey. I'm quite confident she would be able to bring Sylvia's chaotic energy, wit, and playful charm every line, given her role playing Jester Lavorre in the Mighty Nein Critical Role campaign.

That's all I have time for right now. Break time is up, and I've got to get back to the grind.

It was, admittedly, more fun than I was expecting it to be, so I'll probably have to revisit it at some time in the future.

I can see the appeal, but to me it's both a pipe dream, and a bit parasocial. As a general rule, I just avoid parasocial behavior as much as I can, since it directly results in a lot of the issues we have in society. More practically, I just think it doesn't really make sense, because unless you're already connected, by the time you can actually get your dream casting (which I assume is the mental fantasy), they'd probably age out of the roles. Maybe not though. Hollywood is practically immortal. Also, most casting isn't A-List celebs, so I guess I don't see the line between casting reasonable unknown and pre-debut actors versus just taking peoples images randomly and keeping them in a file so I can tell a story about them. Lastly, I think this just falls under deep-level procrastination. I try to make sure that if I'm "procrastinating" that it's at least something that actually helps my work in the future. Even binging television and analyzing the writing seems like a better use of time than deciding if Timothee Chalamet or Tom Holland should be my MC. I rediscovered an unfinished novel from 2014 I was working on, and at least when I procrastinated then, I wrote a detailed outline and color-coded calendar so I remember what I was actually doing.

Anyway, my answer is boring. I think everyone should do what makes them happy, but I will say anecdotally that the friends I have that do partake in casting are also the ones that never really get far with their writing. We all have the same 24 hours in a day.


Final thought: I think the last thing I want to do while writing my passion project is to think about rich people that would probably never think about me. They're already on my screens every day against my will, do they really need to be a part of my imagination and passions too?

Representing_Tromba said:

I always do character first. It makes it easier to image them as real characters and people rather than trying to imagine if an actor could actually play them.

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Pretty much the same here. Though it would depend on the specific story, in most cases, I'd prefer to have unknowns, at least as the major characters. Some support characters could be fun as "names" - the last time I specifically cast a character as an actor, was the time-traveling mentor for one superhero, and he was "played" by George Carlin (there was also a villain time traveler mentoring her brother, but I don't remember who played him now - I do know that the actor died while I was writing the character though ... and Carlin died since then, so that casting wound up impossible...)

Oh, except, in Digital Cowboy Dane a lot of the Non-Travelers (NPCs) are literally based on the likenesses of actors and actresses (mostly ones with ties to Westerns), but this was (at least in story) more due to lazy programmers needing templates than actual casting choices.

Oh, and in one noir-themed game I ran at a convention, I originally planned to have all the PCs be "cast" as actors from the 40s - so you had Dorothy Parker, Veronica Lake, Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Poitier ... and then I decided to cast EVERYONE. So Betty White, Vincent Price (the friend who brought the PCs all together and then gets mysteriously murdered ... yet is seen fleeing the scene of his own death...), Sidney Greenstreet, Lon Chaney and his son, Marty Feldman (yeah, I broke ranks a bit there - he was a businessman from Innsmouth)... Though, while I was writing it, originally for Call of Cthulhu, I had strange images of David Tenant's Tenth Doctor interacting with the NPCs ... so wrote the scenario twice with a few twists, once for "pure" Call of Cthulhu (and with a retired World War I British Doctor "played by" Jon Pertwee) and then for the Doctor Who RPG, with Tenant as The Doctor and the Author of the original COC story replacing one of the characters. When she first comes down the stairs and sees the other PCs, she saysL "Incredible. They're all here. There's poor Harold - I was so growing to like him. And the detective. Hmm. All we're missing is the detective's wife and the English Doctor." From behind her, Tenant says: "Hello" "Oh, you're much too young." "I get that a lot."

Funny thing is, when I write, I tend to just play out their interactions in my head. It's sort of like they're actors in my own mind. I write out the scene and setting, and just show how they talk, act, and interact with their surroundings. It's pretty fun too, and I find them more believable when reading the things I wrote out loud.

I cast people active on the forums to be the characters

The only actor I could see play my MC has been dead since 1979.

John Wayne, playing John Wayne

I only wanted Morgan Freeman to be my narrator