^Samuel L. Jackson. "I have had it with these mother-f**king Borg in this mother-f**king Quadrant!!" No, seriously, I would say Dennis Haysbert as the character, then. He could pull of an enemy role.
If I were to recast Ezri, I would use Ginnifer Goodwin. She and Nicole de Boer look like they could be sisters. In fact, when I first saw her on Once Upon a Time I thought for second that she was Nicole de Boer.
^ He doesn't really have the size, sure. (But who does?) But he has the authoritative speech that I imagine LJ Akaar has.
Back when I was putting together my cast list for the DS9 someone mentioned Vladimir Kulich, and I haven't been able to picture anyone else since then. Although now that I look up Thompson, he's actually the taller of the two. But Kulich still fits my overall mental picture better.
I'd definitely go for Kulich over Thompson for Akaar. Kulich has the physical presence, the imposing sense that he could kick your ass if he wanted to. Thompson has this very soft, very old moneyed elite vibe. He's the sort of man you hire to play a rich old plutocrat or desk jockey. Obviously, Akaar is a bit of a desk jockey as Starfleet C-in-C, but he started off as a field officer, and he's still supposed to come across that way, I think.
For anyone unfamiliar with him, Kulich was The Beast in the 4th season of Angel. I know he was in a ton of makeup there, but it should still give you an idea of how intimidating he is, and that's how I've pictured Akaar. Big and intimidating that is, not a lava demon.
Sure, that might be fitting. To do a little series backtracking, how about James McAvoy as young Jean-Luc Picard in the academy/Stargazer years?
I'm in the middle of reading Book 4 of the Vanguard series. Off the top of my head, these are who I'd cast for various characters, in no particular order: Arlene Tur - Captain Khatami Powers Boothe - Cervantes Quinn Martin Sheen - Tim Pennington Simon Fisher-Becker - Ganz Lena Heady - T'Prynn B.D. Wong - Ming Xiong (An older) Esai Morales (with a caesar haircut) - Commodore Reyes Rekha Sharma - Rana Desai Rutina Wesley - Ana Sandesjo/Lurqal Sam Waterson - Zeke Fisher That's all I can come up with right now.
You do realize Dr. Fisher is supposed to be black, right? (As he's from Mars, I suppose one might say he's an African Martian.)
If you recently read the first three you might want to stop by our "retro review" threads we opened for them over the last couple of months. Opening a thread for Open Secrets will be next!
Reminds me of http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made ...
I meant Doctor Leone, the Endeavour CMO. I forgot his name and got him confused with Fisher. Also, thanks for casting Fisher for me there, Christopher. I meant Michael Sheen. Crap, I'm *not* doing well here, am I? PS, I AM reading the books, so don't think I'm, like, not reading them or anything.