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

Starsaber wrote:

BrightSoul wrote:

rdt wrote:But physically she has the dimensions of a toothpick.

Honor is never described as having a robust physique. She is invariably described as athletic and slender. Summer Glau has all of these qualities. She's NOT top heavy, another trait that is mentioned when describing Honor.

However, according to IMDB, she's at least 6 inches too short. Honor's described as around 6 feet tall, and IMDB says Summer is 5'6", which is probably a bit exaggerated.

Height can be countered with camera angles and CGI easily. Turning a D-cup into a B-cup involves straps and pain.

I think trying to accurately portray the book description would be a bad idea. A non-blonde-bimbo look is good enough, I think.

As for age, I think the prolong issue is just going to complicate things; spending five to ten minutes every movie explaining why people look so young just takes time away from plot and dialog elsewhere, not to mention seeming really clumsy. It will also be instinctively hard for people to watch an eighteen year old command a starship and gain the crew's respect and devotion without it feeling false or like one of those manga series where the captain is seventy and the rest of the bridge crew are thirteen - I even had that problem in the last Star Trek movie (plus what the heck? They promoted a cadet/maybe midshipman [they hadn't graduated yet iirc] to captain and assigned them command of the Federation's flagship? How many 21 year olds have commanded the USS Nimitz or any other carrier?) and the actor looked well past eighteen, to be honest.

As for physicality, forget worrying too much about chest size or height or how asian her features are. The command presence is what will make the role and the film; gravitas is far more important than exact skin tone. Plot, timing and characterisation will make the movie a success, even if it fills the forum with "oh no! She was a C-cup, not a B-cup! She was only 5'11!!!!" There's lots of stuff that will have to be carefully adapted from the books.

petercharters wrote:As for physicality, forget worrying too much about chest size or height or how asian her features are. The command presence is what will make the role and the film; gravitas is far more important than exact skin tone

ditto

Hey, all, new-ish Weber fan and first-time poster, so be gentle :)

One option, although you might want to de-blonde her a bit, would be Daryl Hannah. She's got the cheekbones and the athletic build, and, thanks to Kill Bill, we know she can handle a fight scene and rock an eyepatch. She's also demonstrated acting depths in some of the arthouse stuff she's been in.

Cate Blanchett, of course, could also play Honor, or President Pritchard, or just about any strong female role.

Angela Bassett for the Queen, of course.

George Clooney for Rob Pierre; he's got the needed charisma for the role, with the acting chops to show Rob's underlying despair at riding the hexapuma of the Peep mob.

Stanley Tucci as Saint Just...we've seen him play the innocuous-yet-lethal bureaucrat as Eichman in Conspiracy. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

Tilda Swinton for the murderous, elfin Cordelia Ransom.

Robert Duvall or Max Von Sydow for Howard Clinkscales and/or Klaus Hauptman.

Obviously, money is not an issue in my selections :)

Interesting choices.

petercharters wrote:I think trying to accurately portray the book description would be a bad idea. A non-blonde-bimbo look is good enough, I think.

As for age, I think the prolong issue is just going to complicate things; spending five to ten minutes every movie explaining why people look so young just takes time away from plot and dialog elsewhere, not to mention seeming really clumsy. It will also be instinctively hard for people to watch an eighteen year old command a starship and gain the crew's respect and devotion without it feeling false or like one of those manga series where the captain is seventy and the rest of the bridge crew are thirteen - I even had that problem in the last Star Trek movie (plus what the heck? They promoted a cadet/maybe midshipman [they hadn't graduated yet iirc] to captain and assigned them command of the Federation's flagship? How many 21 year olds have commanded the USS Nimitz or any other carrier?) and the actor looked well past eighteen, to be honest.

As for physicality, forget worrying too much about chest size or height or how asian her features are. The command presence is what will make the role and the film; gravitas is far more important than exact skin tone. Plot, timing and characterisation will make the movie a success, even if it fills the forum with "oh no! She was a C-cup, not a B-cup! She was only 5'11!!!!" There's lots of stuff that will have to be carefully adapted from the books.

My objection to certain attributes was more a case of "good fricking grief do we really have to pander to adolescent fantasies and cast accordingly?" One of the things that has always made characters like Honor or Miles Vorkosigan interesting to me has been their non-standard looks. With RFC's own proclamations regarding the casting or specifically not casting a certain actress it seemed he was deliberately making a statement that she is not some sexpot.

I agree that there will need to be some age shift but going from the appearance of 20-ish to late forties would be counter-intuitive when casting for a role that could run as long as 15-16 movies as the series stands today. Casting someone who looks like they're in their mid to late twenties would specifically work because you could make the prolong point without belaboring it and we wouldn't be going "ick" when Midshipwoman Pavletic come on screen and talks about her love life.

BrightSoul wrote:

petercharters wrote:I think trying to accurately portray the book description would be a bad idea. A non-blonde-bimbo look is good enough, I think.

As for age, I think the prolong issue is just going to complicate things; spending five to ten minutes every movie explaining why people look so young just takes time away from plot and dialog elsewhere, not to mention seeming really clumsy. It will also be instinctively hard for people to watch an eighteen year old command a starship and gain the crew's respect and devotion without it feeling false or like one of those manga series where the captain is seventy and the rest of the bridge crew are thirteen - I even had that problem in the last Star Trek movie (plus what the heck? They promoted a cadet/maybe midshipman [they hadn't graduated yet iirc] to captain and assigned them command of the Federation's flagship? How many 21 year olds have commanded the USS Nimitz or any other carrier?) and the actor looked well past eighteen, to be honest.

As for physicality, forget worrying too much about chest size or height or how asian her features are. The command presence is what will make the role and the film; gravitas is far more important than exact skin tone. Plot, timing and characterisation will make the movie a success, even if it fills the forum with "oh no! She was a C-cup, not a B-cup! She was only 5'11!!!!" There's lots of stuff that will have to be carefully adapted from the books.

My objection to certain attributes was more a case of "good fricking grief do we really have to pander to adolescent fantasies and cast accordingly?" One of the things that has always made characters like Honor or Miles Vorkosigan interesting to me has been their non-standard looks. With RFC's own proclamations regarding the casting or specifically not casting a certain actress it seemed he was deliberately making a statement that she is not some sexpot.

I agree that there will need to be some age shift but going from the appearance of 20-ish to late forties would be counter-intuitive when casting for a role that could run as long as 15-16 movies as the series stands today. Casting someone who looks like they're in their mid to late twenties would specifically work because you could make the prolong point without belaboring it and we wouldn't be going "ick" when Midshipwoman Pavletic come on screen and talks about her love life.

Why would you go "ick" when Midshipwoman Paveltic talks about her love life on screen? Or her sex life, for that matter? Yeah, she's supposed to look like a 12 years old, but if wichever actress gets casted actually fits that part of the character's description, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a line somewhere were it's explained that she isn't really just out of 6th grade. So, if that's cleared up, there's no need to make her grow up 10 years physically. If people can't get pass their gut reaction, that's their problem.

I completly agree that physicall description (as in, Honor's height or eyes) is not that important, as long as the actress can bring her essence to life. But I think that making a strong point about what prolong is and how it works is really important. Just in OBS, part of Allistair's problem with Honor is that she look so damn young, even tho he knows she isn't really on her fresh out of highschool. And if we get sequels, there's going to be the same problem on HotQ, since Graysons do not have prolong, and if your whole manticoran cast is on their mid 20's without explaining why that is, then the audience will get confused when suddenly lots of 50 and 60 y.o. people start popping out.

As for Honor's actress, I too think it'd be better to have an unkown actress doing the job, if nothing else, because any known actress will charge quite a bit of money, and I don't think they'll have much of that to work with. Also, it'd be nice to give a new girl a chance at making it big time, and from an evil-minded corporative PoV, it'd be a lot easier to add a clausule binding her to do the part of Honor in (and if) any sequels that comes later.

Launian wrote: Why would you go "ick" when Midshipwoman Paveltic talks about her love life on screen? Or her sex life, for that matter? Yeah, she's supposed to look like a 12 years old, but if wichever actress gets casted actually fits that part of the character's description, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a line somewhere were it's explained that she isn't really just out of 6th grade. So, if that's cleared up, there's no need to make her grow up 10 years physically. If people can't get pass their gut reaction, that's their problem.

Um, no, that's not only their damn problem. A movie will ot be made just for artistic satisfaction or First Lord Weber's ego. It will be expected to be a success in its own right and those investing in it will not want to make a large monetary loss.

And that's exactly what will happen when the reviews start talking about how creepy it was to watch a twelve year old joking about her sex life. The more alert, better ones who actually don't tune out when technobabble comes on will make some comment about there being an explanation that she's really older, but that they can't get past the fact that [actressnamehere] is only 13.

It's hard to get people to use more than their eyes. Heck, look at the number of people who read/watched Twilight and don't find it phenomenally creepy that some hundred-year old dude is still hanging around in schools lusting after teenagers? If the actor had looked like he was, say, seventy or more, I suspect there would have been a much, much different reaction.

I've been reading all of the posts and thinking a lot about what would be necessary in an actress to properly portray Honor in a movie. For what it is worth, here is my opinion (in order from highest to lowest importance).

#1 - VERY high level of acting ability... you can't scrimp here at all. She would need to be able to have the type of command presence that is the true hallmark of Honor's character, as well as being able to handle the subtleties of the early Honor's weaknesses (uncertainty - in private at least; the bond with Nimitz; the issues that come from her experiences with Pavel Young and her other personality quirks).

#2 - Reasonably young age. There is a bit of flexibility here, although not too much. The actress who is chosen needs to be young enough to portray the character multiple times (hopefully there will be multiple movies!) without getting too old, too soon. Yes, makeup can help make an actress look a bit younger, but you shouldn't go overboard with it... esp since one of Honor's traits early in the series was the fact that she wore little or no makeup. The prolong issue MUST be a part of the story (IMHO, at least), but if dealt with carefully it will be flavoring for the story, not THE story itself.

#3 - A moderate match for the physical image of Honor. Camera angles can help deal with some of the height deficiency of a shorter actress, but you shouldn't push that too much (5'8" or so is about as short as I think they should stray). The actress should be very athletic, and willing to put in a LOT of work to learn the martial arts moves and have the 'look' the character should have. Hair color? Doesn't mean diddly - that's what dye is for. Breast size? Shouldn't be a big deal, but 'C' cup or smaller should be a limit. Ethnic look? An actress who plays Honor should either have that slight Asian look, or be close enough that a small amount of makeup can give that 'look'.


As I said, #3 has the greatest flexibility to it; #2 is important, but can slide a bit; and #1 is critical, whatever the results of #2 and #3 are.

petercharters wrote:

Launian wrote: Why would you go "ick" when Midshipwoman Paveltic talks about her love life on screen? Or her sex life, for that matter? Yeah, she's supposed to look like a 12 years old, but if wichever actress gets casted actually fits that part of the character's description, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a line somewhere were it's explained that she isn't really just out of 6th grade. So, if that's cleared up, there's no need to make her grow up 10 years physically. If people can't get pass their gut reaction, that's their problem.

Um, no, that's not only their damn problem. A movie will ot be made just for artistic satisfaction or First Lord Weber's ego. It will be expected to be a success in its own right and those investing in it will not want to make a large monetary loss.

And that's exactly what will happen when the reviews start talking about how creepy it was to watch a twelve year old joking about her sex life. The more alert, better ones who actually don't tune out when technobabble comes on will make some comment about there being an explanation that she's really older, but that they can't get past the fact that [actressnamehere] is only 13.

It's hard to get people to use more than their eyes. Heck, look at the number of people who read/watched Twilight and don't find it phenomenally creepy that some hundred-year old dude is still hanging around in schools lusting after teenagers? If the actor had looked like he was, say, seventy or more, I suspect there would have been a much, much different reaction.

Nah, most of us would have assumed we'd finally seen what Nameless looks like. ;)