Who would make a good Honor Harrington in a Movie/TV role?

Nightfox wrote:Angelina Jolie will never be Honor Harrington. David has stated many years ago that she will never be Honor, I believe it is even to be included in the contract for any production of Honor Harrington on the big or small screen.

It's a long explanation for why, and it pretty much one of those "Kill this thread now" things when she gets mentioned.


Moving on to other people ideas

I think that Maggie Q from Nikita on CW would be an interesting current choice. Tall, Eurasian, some acting skill.


Nightfox

t t

I got the same response years ago at the Baen Bar when I made the mistake of proposing Angelina Jolie to play Honor. I know David Weber is dead set against having her playing Honor Harrington, but Bohica is right, seeing her as Captain "Franky" Cook in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Angelina Jolie's similarity with Honor Harrington in a GSN uniform was uncanny.

I know Mr. Weber is dead set against Angelina Jolie playing Honor Harrington, but he should reconsider and use the threat as a way to get more money from whichever production company agrees to the rights to Honor Harrington. Just a thought.

I think the actress who played Boomer in BSG and Geena Davis are also great choices for Honor, especially since Geena Davis has done TV as the President in the failed series Commander in Chief.

I personally love Angela Basset as the queen over Halle Berry as well as she would have been the perfect storm in X-Men but I digress. Angela can do strong character and emotional projection and her skin tone matches that of the Queen as described. Altenative the ADA in Law and Order UK could also do the Queen Elizabeth since her British accent might be nice to have as the Queen and it could probably coached into something that sounds slightly more American to make it sound hybrid and more akin to Manticoran English.

How about as an option out of left field for either Queen Elizabeth or even better, Countess New Kiev or Descroix or Lady North Hollow Vanessa L. Williams. She can play glamorous and can be a totally amoral evil witch. (I love her, but she's that good as a bad girl).

Another candidate for Queen Elizabeth would be Jennifer Hudson. She's got the acting chops and is still a relative unknown. Well these are my suggestions.

Ijust finished re-watching Wrath of Khan.
go find an actress that looks like a young (skinny) Kirsti Alley

profcough wrote:Ijust finished re-watching Wrath of Khan.
go find an actress that looks like a young (skinny) Kirsti Alley

Um, get one with acting skills, while you're at it. Ms. Alley couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag.

dscott8 wrote:

profcough wrote:Ijust finished re-watching Wrath of Khan.
go find an actress that looks like a young (skinny) Kirsti Alley

Um, get one with acting skills, while you're at it. Ms. Alley couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag.

But, at various times, she would have looked quite good coming out of a paper bag.

(Is there a Fly buzzing around in here?)

Sorry. I think that it is something in the ether. Is that ether or ether?

I still maintain that Sigourney Weaver would make an excellent Honor Harrington. For those that think that prolong would be an issue, consider Hollywood's tendency to simplify: it seems likely to me that the concept of prolong would be dropped by the scriptwriters as too complicated for the average moviegoer to understand. It isn't but it is probably too complicated for the scriptwriters to understand, therefore an older actress would be wanted for the role. Which brings us back to Sigourney Weaver.

I tend not to contribute to casting threads since my knowledge of actors is pretty spare (I fail to see why people idolize entertainers.)

However my instinct is that an HH movie, especially if it's intended ot be the start of a series, would be better served by making a casting director earn their pay by finding the right people for the job, reguardless of hollywood 'name brand' status. If that gives us a ship full of unknowns who nonetheless look and act their part, I'd be happy.

Andor wrote:I tend not to contribute to casting threads since my knowledge of actors is pretty spare (I fail to see why people idolize entertainers.)

However my instinct is that an HH movie, especially if it's intended ot be the start of a series, would be better served by making a casting director earn their pay by finding the right people for the job, reguardless of hollywood 'name brand' status. If that gives us a ship full of unknowns who nonetheless look and act their part, I'd be happy.

Especially if that meant money saved by not hiring big name actors could go instead to making a better movie.

for the early books Stephanie Jacobse would be pretty good (she's the young woman from the new True grit movie).

And personally I think Maggie Q would be good for the later books.

zuluwiz wrote:For those that think that prolong would be an issue, consider Hollywood's tendency to simplify: it seems likely to me that the concept of prolong would be dropped by the scriptwriters as too complicated for the average moviegoer to understand.

Ehm no.
Prolong would be THE eyecatcher for any HH movie.
You wont generate enough interest for a scifi movie based on 16th century England. Who wants to see that?? Scifi fans will only take you so far, especially since a large percentage of them dont read that much and therefore dont know about the Honor Harringtion series.
What you need is something to stir interest. Prolong can do it for you. "Kids" onboard starhsips is something news. Its exotic. You can play with it. Young hot chicks in combat makes good trailers. Just think Starship Troopers (yes, i mentioned that one).

mvlachos wrote:for the early books Stephanie Jacobse would be pretty good (she's the young woman from the new True grit movie).

She was great as Kendra Shaw in BSG Razor.

Andor wrote:I tend not to contribute to casting threads since my knowledge of actors is pretty spare (I fail to see why people idolize entertainers.)

However my instinct is that an HH movie, especially if it's intended ot be the start of a series, would be better served by making a casting director earn their pay by finding the right people for the job, reguardless of hollywood 'name brand' status. If that gives us a ship full of unknowns who nonetheless look and act their part, I'd be happy.

Agreed for two reasons.

1) Most likely any initial Honorverse production will not be a $100 million dollar mega-movie. (If successful, sequals might see big budgets, but not the first one.)

2) The Honorverse has a mainline span of 20 years now --the actress needs to grow with the character without looking ancient by movie # 5 if the movie series is successful. Prolong is minimally needed as a movie plot device -- it is mainly an wizbang, geewow effect of the future with minimal plot neccessity in the books. An aging Honor is fine, especially if the actress starts off in her 20s and finishes the series in her early 40s.