An Actress to play Honor Harrington

Here are my criteria:

1) Personality
This needs to numero uno in my opinion. I don't care how she looks, but if her personality is off, then it won't work.

2)Played by an Unknown
I don't just mean someone who has not had major roles in awhile, I mean an Unknown. I mean someone who may not even have an IMDB page right now. Someone who is waiting tables or still doing plays.

The reasons are:
a) A well-known would cause this to be marketed as "A Megan Fox movie" rather than about the IP.
b) Allows the Actress to give the role her best effort, and for both writers and actress to work to craft the best Honor we can get.
c) We would launch the career of a deserving actress.
d)Less costly.

3)Appearance
Mostly so that people can see the poster and they can go "Yeah that is Honor.". This will be the biggest challenge: "new film requires female actress for lead role. Must be Asian.6'2" or taller....".

If I had to do without 1 it would have be #3. Evergreen seems dedicated enough to get the Personality right, and having an Unknown would keep the actress from overshadowing the movie itself.

Random thought . . . What about Chloe Bennet of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

She's played in the series mostly as the naive newcomer . . . but I wouldn't be surprised if she could be sufficiently badass for the part; and she looks kind of right -- except that she's not tall enough.

If Deep Roy is cast as Admiral Courvosier and all the other actors are cast on the same scale, it'll be easy to find someone as (relatively) tall as Honor...

Apologies to Deep Roy, this was a comment made in jest...

Michael Everett wrote:If Deep Roy is cast as Admiral Courvosier and all the other actors are cast on the same scale, it'll be easy to find someone as (relatively) tall as Honor...

Apologies to Deep Roy, this was a comment made in jest...

Danny DeVito could play Pavel Young's father.

A casting trope that I hope Evergreen avoids like the plague...

The Hollywood version of flag officers.

In point: Hollywood likes to cast old fat guys as flag officers, about 80% percent of the time.

From 40 years in the Army and in Defense agencies, I can tell you that serving flag officers are NOT like that.

a) First off, serving flag officers are RARELY over 60 (pre-prolong) years of age, and they almost always look younger. It requires special dispensation for anyone to serve past 65, and it is rarely given and only to finish service in the most senior (read, 4-star) positions.

b) Serving flag officers tend to be in GREAT shape. Generally, their preference is to LEAD their daily staff runs. Most of them are very conscious that they are leading an providing and example for 18-35 year olds, and they reserve time and work very hard to be in shape to do that.

Gen Schwatzkopf is sometimes cited as the counter argument to the above, but my understanding is that his somatype was deceptive. He DID lead his staff runs, you wouldn't want to get on the paddleball court with him unless you were on top of your game, and that he always kept a treadmill with a reading shelf in his quarters, for his 'more relaxed' moments.

c) Serving flag officers tend to be scary smart. Most of them have a doctorate (or several) in anything from engineering to IT to history to psychology, in addition to their near-doctorate level professional studies. That, plus the 30 years or so of focused attention and success in a highly competitive and examined profession which got them to star ranks in the first place.

In short, Liam Neeson in Battleship looked/acted like a flag officer, in my experience. Ernest Borgnine in Dirty Dozen, not so much.

Phalanx wrote:Here are my criteria:

1) Personality
This needs to numero uno in my opinion. I don't care how she looks, but if her personality is off, then it won't work.

2)Played by an Unknown
I don't just mean someone who has not had major roles in awhile, I mean an Unknown. I mean someone who may not even have an IMDB page right now. Someone who is waiting tables or still doing plays.

The reasons are:
a) A well-known would cause this to be marketed as "A Megan Fox movie" rather than about the IP.
b) Allows the Actress to give the role her best effort, and for both writers and actress to work to craft the best Honor we can get.
c) We would launch the career of a deserving actress.
d)Less costly.

3)Appearance
Mostly so that people can see the poster and they can go "Yeah that is Honor.". This will be the biggest challenge: "new film requires female actress for lead role. Must be Asian.6'2" or taller....".

If I had to do without 1 it would have be #3. Evergreen seems dedicated enough to get the Personality right, and having an Unknown would keep the actress from overshadowing the movie itself.

Although I am of the "Should actually BE tall" school for casting, I don't believe that Honor is described anywhere as being 6'2" or better. I think that David's words generally describe her as "over 6' tall". Let's not make this casting call impossible <grin>.

Also, there is nowhere in canon that Honor is described as looking "Asian".

To quote OBS, "The face that gazed back...It was still all sharply defined planes and angles dominated by a straight patrician nose...".

And again later, "Her eyes were even darker <than her hair - dr>, and she'd always thought their hint of an almond shape <emphasis mine - dr>, inheirited from her mother, made them look out of place in her strong boned face, almost as if they had been added as an afterthought."

dreamrider

dreamrider wrote:

Phalanx wrote:Here are my criteria:

1) Personality
This needs to numero uno in my opinion. I don't care how she looks, but if her personality is off, then it won't work.

2)Played by an Unknown
I don't just mean someone who has not had major roles in awhile, I mean an Unknown. I mean someone who may not even have an IMDB page right now. Someone who is waiting tables or still doing plays.

The reasons are:
a) A well-known would cause this to be marketed as "A Megan Fox movie" rather than about the IP.
b) Allows the Actress to give the role her best effort, and for both writers and actress to work to craft the best Honor we can get.
c) We would launch the career of a deserving actress.
d)Less costly.

3)Appearance
Mostly so that people can see the poster and they can go "Yeah that is Honor.". This will be the biggest challenge: "new film requires female actress for lead role. Must be Asian.6'2" or taller....".

If I had to do without 1 it would have be #3. Evergreen seems dedicated enough to get the Personality right, and having an Unknown would keep the actress from overshadowing the movie itself.

Although I am of the "Should actually BE tall" school for casting, I don't believe that Honor is described anywhere as being 6'2" or better. I think that David's words generally describe her as "over 6' tall". Let's not make this casting call impossible <grin>.

dreamrider

Dreamrider, I don't have the specific textev right now, but IIRC Honor is usually said to be around 188cm tall, which converts to 74", or about 6'2".

And Hollywood has had long practice in making short actors (or actresses) seem taller--check 50's movie star Alan Ladd, who was only about 5'7" and sometime shorter than his female lead (which would never do in 50's Hollywood).

Echoes Ch49 begs to differ: "And frantically though Alistair McKeon, Andrew LaFollet, and Horace Harkness had searched, they had not turned up a single Peep skinsuit designed for a one-armed woman a hundred and eighty-eight centimeters tall."

As 188 cm is just over 6 feet and 2-&-1/64 of an inch, that makes her canonically taller (by about 4 micrometers or 1/4 the width of a human hair ) than 6'2".


However, I agree that while it would be problematic to cast a purebred Caucasian in the role, ideally Honor shouldn't be played by a purebred Asian either. However, if they have to err to one of those sides in the casting process, I would be far more happy with them erring towards "too Asian looking" than "Standard Casting Monochrome", even if that costs us an inch or two ... after all it's not all about the inches, it's also what you do with it: the ability to portray the role is paramount, then the look (in general not specifics), then the height.

I wouldn't hold my breath for the patrician nose-almond eyes combo.

dreamrider wrote:[snipped Phalanx' post]

Although I am of the "Should actually BE tall" school for casting, I don't believe that Honor is described anywhere as being 6'2" or better. I think that David's words generally describe her as "over 6' tall". Let's not make this casting call impossible <grin>.

Also, there is nowhere in canon that Honor is described as looking "Asian".

To quote OBS, "The face that gazed back...It was still all sharply defined planes and angles dominated by a straight patrician nose...".

And again later, "Her eyes were even darker <than her hair - dr>, and she'd always thought their hint of an almond shape <emphasis mine - dr>, inheirited from her mother, made them look out of place in her strong boned face, almost as if they had been added as an afterthought."

dreamrider

Aargh, some bloody Ninja just got me!

Oh, hi Hutch, dug out that textev for you.

Hutch wrote:[snip]
IIRC Honor is usually said to be around 188cm tall, which converts to 74", or about 6'2".

dreamrider wrote:A casting trope that I hope Evergreen avoids like the plague...

The Hollywood version of flag officers.

In point: Hollywood likes to cast old fat guys as flag officers, about 80% percent of the time.

From 40 years in the Army and in Defense agencies, I can tell you that serving flag officers are NOT like that.

.

my own 25 years in the Navy from Recruit to Commander also confirms the almost preternatural fitness of its senior officers. these are soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen first. NOT fat-a$$ politicians who lead from the front...front of their overstuffed bellies.

think Spruance, Halsey, Nimitz, Lee, Chief Joseph, Powell. and don't even remotely think there are overweight marine generals.

and yes, there are exceptions, but I'd suggest researching just what those "fatties" did for relaxation/fitness....usually something that would wipe the ground with anyone of less than olympic stature.

finally, read what Himself has written...these militia are fit personalities...and where they are not, they are exceptions, not the rule.