CASTING

OK, so let us talk casting. Way, way back in the day. Arif very briefly asked me who I saw in the roles. I tell him that I had originally written the part of the hero for an actor friend of mine, Brendan McDonald, but as most of his work is in the theatre, odds are Arif will never have heard of him. Arif has not, and needless to say he would like to get some names that people have heard of. So I say that for the part of the heroine, I would cast Shannyn Sossamon, who is maybe not the most well known actress in the world, but was absolutely fantastic in The Rules of Attraction and a low budget movie called Wristcutters. There are two reasons that I personally think she would be great – three if you want to count the fact that she is a really, really, really attractive woman.

One is that the female lead is a combination of mad, bad and dangerous to know and this waiflike naive quality which I think would be a tough needle to thread (I say this safe in the knowledge that I could not act my way out of a paper bag and have some cheap college shorts to prove it – hopefully none of which you will ever see)

Two is my absolute terror of what I have come to think of as the L’Oreal shot.

Picture the scene – the female lead in a film which contains a fair few motorbikes. I am therefore filled with dread that at some point, there will be a shot where a bike pulls up, the rider’s helmet comes off and stand revealed as beautiful woman – but with long tresses spilling down, her head shaking in slow mo as said hair frames her beautiful face – like we’re selling shampoo. But this bottled shit – where your hair will look like it’s spent the last five hours being pampered in a salon rather than in the sweaty confines of a bike helmet. Ms Sossamon has on occasion been known to sport this weird crop, and still look gorgeous, and it’s always been that haircut that I think of when I think of our heroine.

Arif asks me about male leads. I say that I really have not given it much thought – my train of thought usually gets to Sossamon and then derails, but Stewart Townsend would be on my list (I’m not actually sure if he is acting anymore – he was directing last I heard and his Seattle film was very good) and then just because I have to say it – I say it – Colin Farrell.

Townsend first – hero is a bit of a prickly character – he’s a guy who does not have a huge amount of friends but inspires fierce loyalty in those friends that he does have. He also starts the film at a low point in his life, on the back foot, and is a bit moody. So they guy playing him has to be almost instantly likable. And that’s a quality I think Townsend has – there is a film called About Adam which I saw years ago – where Townsend plays the eponymous Adam. He turns up and basically seduces all three sisters in a family, seduces the girlfriend of the brother, and I imagine if there is an extended directors cut floating around, he probably seduces the mother as well.

spoiler alert here for anyone who has not yet, but intends to catch it at some point in the future.




At the end of the film, he is getting married to Kate Hudson (perfect Irish accent as mentioned before) and he shags the eldest sister (lovely performance from Charlotte Bradley I thought) on the same day. A mere two hours before he marries the younger sister. I think he even has to take off the pants of his wedding suit to do it. And we the audience don’t mind. It’s not a blokey thing – as in this guy is a legend, he tapped all three sisters in the one house – he actually manages to sell it that he is doing them a favour, and enriching their lives. That is a tough sell especially to a woman audience, but it appears to work. And Townsend pulled that off – quick, open the window before we all drown in charisma. Incidentally, there was a twist in the plot, where Katie Hudson, Adam’s future wife also had a quick fling with an ex – just before the marriage – presumably someone panicked and thought it would level the playing field a bit – but I always thought it would have been a much braver and more interesting decision to not include that – leave Katie as the naive innocent and see how that played out – and I bet Stuart could have pulled that one off too. To quote the great Moliere, vice in small quantities is but a sour and wretched thing, but the clamorous surfeit of a single inequity is so pure and triumphal that it beats back onlookers with the force of heroic virtue.

And I think someone with charisma needles buried in the red at the top of the scale would be great as the hero.

So why did I say Colin Farrell? How could I not? Seriously. If someone randomly came up and said “name an male Irish actor, aged about 30, preferably with a Dublin accent” if Colin is not the first name out of your mouth, you’ve been asleep in a cave for the last fifteen years, and you need to catch up on loads of cool shit like high speed broadband and ipods. The thing about Farrell is that amongst all the stuff about the drinking, and the home movies and the adventures with various young ladies, I think people sometimes forget that the guy is one seriously good actor. I first saw him in Tigerland – had never heard of him before then – and it was only about a month after that talking to Bren that I found out he was Irish. The guy who played Boz was a mick? You’re kidding me. And all the great performances after that. Intermission, Minority Report, In Bruges, take your pick. My personal favorite Farrell moment (and I would love to know if it was in the script) was in Minority Report (cool to see that they still have braces in the future too) where Tom Cruise has just gone on the run. He has ditched the flying jet pack cops, runs down an alley and almost gets run over by another cop car containing Colin. Cruise and Farrell see each other and Colin gives a little wave. Hi, how ya doin? Me again. For me, it’s a wonderful little moment of brinkmanship masked as social absurdity in the middle of a really tense scene and beats out all the flying jet packs and self driving cars for cool stuff from the year 2054. Dragging this back to our hero, as I said he starts the story, having just been kicked around a bit by life, but he doesn’t ever whinge about it. I think Colin would be great at always just giving you that little reminder that “hey, I’m carrying a lot of baggage here, and just because I’m not moaning about it does not mean it has gone away” Plus he might throw in the pizza equivalent of that little wave in the car.

So of the two of them, who would be better? I don’t know. They’re actors – this is their art. Each of them would bring their own interpretation to their role, and I’m sure either one would be fantastic. It’s like asking which version of After Midnight do you prefer – Cale or Clapton? It’s the same piece of work but each man puts his unique stamp on it. Frankly I’d be lucky beyond belief to get either one of them.

I tell Arif all of this, and he nods and makes a note of it. And we don’t speak of it again. I’m sure he has his own list, and I have no idea who is on it. It occurs to me at this point that Arif has a pretty good poker face and a high stakes game of Texas Holdem between him and Pete would be something to see.

He’s not even going to send it out to cast until I produce a draft that he is happy with, so back to flashing cursor.