Today’s question comes from my spouse. A couple of weeks ago he asked,
Who would you pick to play your characters in a movie?
For the most part, I don’t have a strong opinion. I believe anyone at all could play them. I mean, clearly I’d like to keep the ages intact—my teenagers need to be played by teenagers, my kids by kids. Ideally, the main characters would also stay their “real” ages. The three point-of-view characters are all in their mid-thirties, and it honestly doesn’t make sense to have them suddenly be much younger or older.
Although I use some physical descriptions on which casting could be based, I don’t think it’s necessary to keep strictly to it. None of them have anything as distinctive as, say, Harry Potter, so it honestly doesn’t matter. Phin, as written, is white and sandy-blond. But would it really matter if he was played by a swarthy Italian guy? Nope. The dialogue referencing his looks is unimportant to the basic story and could be changed or eliminated.
My one rule is that I don’t tolerate white-washing. Since Vic is biracial, he’d better not be played by a white dude. Josue and Oscar are Dominican, so same thing there. I don’t object to casting the other way around, though—white characters don’t really need to be white, in my opinion. Changing their race or ethnicity does absolutely nothing to hurt the story, as long as it’s handled well and doesn’t end up being tokenism. I know there’s this thing where The Powers That Be have used Complex Mathematical Equations to conclude making white characters be anything but white would hurt the appeal. They can shove it, for all I care.
Anyway, back to the subject. I really do have an opinion on Phin and Alex, despite my flexibility. Please, someone else tell me you find this as…er…appealing as I do:
Fangirl sigh. I would pay full price evening admission to see those two lock lips. Yes? Funnily enough, I learned recently that they are, in fact, doing a movie together. Not as lovers, unfortunately. Dear Movie Gods: Please, please, please make that happen. I don’t care how you do it. You will make people everywhere swoon.
