Page to Screen: Book to movie / series adaptation discussions - Page 6

For me none of the child actors stood out, except for maybe Ron (Rupert Grint).

But the senior actors were all mostly good.

They wasted Gary Oldman as Sirius. He got so little to do.

Emma Thompson was great as Sybil Trelawny (when is she not?)

And Kenneth Branagh killed it as Lockhart

I agree about Imelda Staunton and Umbridge. She was so sweetly lethal.

HBC was predictably unhinged but she did bring Bellatrix to life in the best way.

I feel for Ralph Fiennes the most. He had to act and bring the evilness to Voldy with half his face missing & I think he did a great job of it.

Originally posted by: LizzieBennet

Thanks, everyone for sharing your thoughts but now that you've done I want to put this to you all..

When you read, do you imagine a character to look a certain way based off of the author's descriptions? Going one step further, do you fancast a character in your head when you read? And when the screen adaptation comes out, did you ever find that your fancast (or mental picture) of that character was so perfectly embodied by the actor in question that you cannot now imagine that character as looking like anyone else? Or the other way round - the actor was nothing like you imagined but you were still blown away by their portrayal and now they have replaced your original fancast in your head?

Do tell us your own personal Top 3, or Top 5 or even Top 10 actors who lived and breathed their characters so much that they became that character.

I normally don't do fancasting for the books I read so I am happy to accept whoever is cast in an adaptation. And if they do a well enough job, everything is savvy but there are times when the casting is just wrong... Like completely horrible and I don't know why it's wrong, just that it is wrong and the either thing becomes unbearable to watch.

As for my list, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister/ Lord Vitenari, Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones. I can't imagine someone else as Bridget. Infact whenever I read Bridget Jones's diary, it's her voice I hear in my head.

Originally posted by: foreverlazy

@bold: Oh my god, the amount of coffee shop and college AUs that I read when Shadowhunters and Teen Wolf were still airing - those fanfics absolutely helped me get through university.

AUs are not really my go-to or something I actively seek out, I just end up reading them because they've been a popular fanfic style for a couple of years now. But I find that even when it's just a fanfic about the current track of a show, characters can seem OOC because maybe you have the doormat of the show finally sticking up for themselves and it feels cathartic as both a reader and a writer. But when writers completely change the character is when I lose all interest because what do you mean you're going to write the show's nicest character as the school bully???

The type of AUs that I like are when the characters still feel like the characters from the original source material, they end up going through similar story beats, but it's all in a different setting or having them in different occupations. Red White and Royal Blue fanfics are actually a great example of this because even though there are so many AUs in this fandom, most of them just feel like a retelling of the book with a different writing style and added plot because instead of being the First Son and the prince, the main couple might be written as actors or athletes or even just regular, non-famous people.

@bold I swear man! Of all things I hate it's this OOC thing in an FF. Especially those where you're reading a villain or grey character's fic and the author decides to make them the fluffiest teddy bear in the world. The entire point of me reading the ff was that I love the villain as he is, just keep him true to his character and give me a fic that gives me a proper arc or romance.

I haven't read RWRB. I think I'll give it a try 🤔🤔

Originally posted by: LizzieBennet

For me none of the child actors stood out, except for maybe Ron (Rupert Grint).

But the senior actors were all mostly good.

They wasted Gary Oldman as Sirius. He got so little to do.

Emma Thompson was great as Sybil Trelawny (when is she not?)

And Kenneth Branagh killed it as Lockhart

I agree about Imelda Staunton and Umbridge. She was so sweetly lethal.

HBC was predictably unhinged but she did bring Bellatrix to life in the best way.

I feel for Ralph Fiennes the most. He had to act and bring the evilness to Voldy with half his face missing & I think he did a great job of it.

Oh yes! How could I forget Sirius! Truly wasted potential there . I liked most of the teachers... the ones you mentioned as well as Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick (and Griphook the goblin), Ian Hart as Q.. Q.. Q.. Quirrel, Brendan Gleeson as Alastor "Madeye" Moody and Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn were good choices. I liked David Thewlis in his teaching scenes but not so much in the werewolf parts. Bill Nighy as Rufus Scrimgreour was another wasted potential.

And you're right, Ralph Fiennes did a fine job with Voldemort too... acting without the help of facial expressions must have been difficult.

Originally posted by: aryapdane

@bold I swear man! Of all things I hate it's this OOC thing in an FF. Especially those where you're reading a villain or grey character's fic and the author decides to make them the fluffiest teddy bear in the world. The entire point of me reading the ff was that I love the villain as he is, just keep him true to his character and give me a fic that gives me a proper arc or romance.

I haven't read RWRB. I think I'll give it a try 🤔🤔

Haha! This is common practice in Harry Potter fandom... which is why I don't read FFs there. They want to show the antagonists as the most misunderstood people in the world, while the actual protagonists are secretly evil and it was all their masterplan somehow . It could work if the story is a mystery / thriller and this was done to subvert expectations or perhaps even as a Red Herring... but otherwise... Nope.

Btw, I also like RDJ as Tony Stark and he is definitely one of the best cast actors in MCU.

Originally posted by: ssttuuttii

Haha! This is common practice in Harry Potter fandom... which is why I don't read FFs there. They want to show the antagonists as the most misunderstood people in the world, while the actual protagonists are secretly evil and it was all their masterplan somehow . It could work if the story is a mystery / thriller and this was done to subvert expectations or perhaps even as a Red Herring... but otherwise... Nope.

Btw, I also like RDJ as Tony Stark and he is definitely one of the best cast actors in MCU.

Hahahaha I think I've been scarred by too many Manipulative Dumbledore fics to ever read a HP fanfiction. Leave the poor man alone. He did his best and won y'all the bloody wizarding war coz let's face it, without him Harry would've been clueless. And the glorification of Snape 🤧🤧 I mean I love Snape as much as the next person but he is not the romantic Lord Byronesque character that people have made him to be. He is a bitter character and he needs to be depicted that way.

Man, RDJ slayed as Tony. Even Tom Hiddleston as Loki was perfection. Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury but then one couldn't have gone wrong with Samuel Jackson.

Originally posted by: aryapdane

Hahahaha I think I've been scarred by too many Manipulative Dumbledore fics to ever read a HP fanfiction. Leave the poor man alone. He did his best and won y'all the bloody wizarding war coz let's face it, without him Harry would've been clueless. And the glorification of Snape 🤧🤧 I mean I love Snape as much as the next person but he is not the romantic Lord Byronesque character that people have made him to be. He is a bitter character and he needs to be depicted that way.

Man, RDJ slayed as Tony. Even Tom Hiddleston as Loki was perfection. Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury but then one couldn't have gone wrong with Samuel Jackson.

You forgot to mention the Weasley bashing . The HP fandom is nuts so I don't venture into fanfics there... which is sad because HP with its diverse characters and multiple parallelly running storylines could give us the best FFs... adding onto the existing plot and developing the characters that were given less time originally. Well... Rowling seems to be writing fanfics of her own work so there's that at least (on her website where she has written detailed backgrounds for various characters... and of course the Fantastic Beasts movies. I consider all her work / comments after the Deathly Hallows as fanfic because there's no way The Cursed Child could be canon .)

I like all the 3 MCU actors you mentioned. Would like to add some more actors to this list... especially in terms of comic book accuracy (which is admittedly low in the MCU ) - Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Charlie Cox as Daredevil. MCU is another one of those rare movie series that manages to get most of the casting choices right. Some like the Guardians were surprisingly well chosen . But since the movies have their own plots and characterizations, I won't mention the other actors in a topic meant for book comparisons .

How did I forget to mention this?

One adaptation that wins hands down over the book/ play for me is Angoor!

I mean I've probably read A Comedy of errors but I do not remember laughing so hard. Even the side characters are a riot - the jeweler guy who draws a map to explain where and when he handed over the necklace to Ashok!

The screenplay by Gulzar is simply stellar. I can watch it over and over.

This is a little off-topic, but a connection between HP and Bridgerton that I recently discovered is that Bessie Carter (Prudence Featherington) is my queen Imelda Staunton's daughter!!!

Originally posted by: ssttuuttii

You forgot to mention the Weasley bashing . The HP fandom is nuts so I don't venture into fanfics there... which is sad because HP with its diverse characters and multiple parallelly running storylines could give us the best FFs... adding onto the existing plot and developing the characters that were given less time originally. Well... Rowling seems to be writing fanfics of her own work so there's that at least (on her website where she has written detailed backgrounds for various characters... and of course the Fantastic Beasts movies. I consider all her work / comments after the Deathly Hallows as fanfic because there's no way The Cursed Child could be canon .)

I like all the 3 MCU actors you mentioned. Would like to add some more actors to this list... especially in terms of comic book accuracy (which is admittedly low in the MCU ) - Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Charlie Cox as Daredevil. MCU is another one of those rare movie series that manages to get most of the casting choices right. Some like the Guardians were surprisingly well chosen . But since the movies have their own plots and characterizations, I won't mention the other actors in a topic meant for book comparisons .

Even the HP movies are guilty of the injustice that is dished out to Weasleys but yeah the fandom takes it to a different level altogether. Lol the FB movies have been atrocious and although my heart bleeds at the thought that I won't get Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen as Dumbledore and Grindelwald, i am happy that the movies got cancelled. Isn't Cursed Child a fanfiction though?? I thought it was some other person who wrote it and Rowling just approved of it. That woman needs to stop trying to milk the HP franchise for every cent. That said, I wonder if the new HP series would be any good.

You're right about the MCU. They do tend to get the casting right.