Cast the Characters of Trek Literature

[Christopher]

I've just had a thought for who could play the young (c. 2290s) version of Curzon Dax, as seen in The Art of the Impossible, Forged in Fire, and The Sorrows of Empire: Alan Tudyk.

[JD]

Oh, I like that.

[Sci]

Christopher wrote:

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I've just had a thought for who could play the young (c. 2290s) version of Curzon Dax, as seen in The Art of the Impossible, Forged in Fire, and The Sorrows of Empire: Alan Tudyk.

Yes!

I heartily approve.

[KRAD]

Christopher wrote:

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I've just had a thought for who could play the young (c. 2290s) version of Curzon Dax, as seen in The Art of the Impossible, Forged in Fire, and The Sorrows of Empire: Alan Tudyk.

Yeah, that works.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Ah yes, the same guy who once said that Star Trek was for pussies. Good luck with that.

[Christopher]

^It's a fantasy casting thread. We can imagine whoever we want.

Besides, even if it weren't, you don't have to like Star Trek to work on it. Nicholas Meyer never cared for ST, but he still directed two ST movies and co-wrote another one. Pay an actor enough and he'll do ST as a job no matter what he thinks of it as entertainment.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Christopher wrote:

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you don't have to like Star Trek to work on it. Nicholas Meyer never cared for ST, but he still directed two ST movies and co-wrote another one. Pay an actor enough and he'll do ST as a job no matter what he thinks of it as entertainment.

Perhaps. But I'd rather have actors in it who want to be there. They'd be more likely to give better performances if they're enjoying it. I mean, they don't have to be full-out Trekkies, but it'd be rather hard to do a good job at something you hate...

[DevilEyes]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Perhaps. But I'd rather have actors in it who want to be there. They'd be more likely to give better performances if they're enjoying it. I mean, they don't have to be full-out Trekkies, but it'd be rather hard to do a good job at something you hate...

But it doesn't really matter, because this is more of a "who do you imagine in your head while you read/write" thread, than a "who would you cast if it went into production". Look at some of the previous pages, some authors have "cast" people who have been long dead, or younger versions of actors who are now too old to play those characters.

Now here's something I thought about while reading Seeds of Dissent: in an imaginary situation where the Myriad Universes/Mirror Universe literature were actually filmed, normally you'd expect the same actors to play alternate versions of their characters - and it often makes me think "wow, this would really be a great opportunity for X to play something different"... but would that even be possible for any of the 24th humans in that novella, without the use of CGI? Characters like Princeps Bashir, Optio O'Brien and Jake Sisko in this alternate universe are products of 300 years of genetic engineering and selective breeding. For one thing, it's made clear that the humans of that era are much taller, bigger and stronger than the alien races or the humans of 21st century - now the actors are already tall, particularly Cirroc Lofton, and I guess this could be solved with things like camera angles, shoes, standing on boxes, stuffed costumes... But there are likely to be a number of other differences as well, e.g. it was mentioned that Bashir has blue eyes. Now that of course wouldn't be a problem with contacts... but it still stands to reason that these people would look very different from their canon counterparts. And then there's also the remark that they don't just look stronger, but "denser"... I don't even know what that is supposed to look like.

[captcalhoun]

NFL linebackers or Rugby props

[Captaindemotion]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Perhaps. But I'd rather have actors in it who want to be there. They'd be more likely to give better performances if they're enjoying it. I mean, they don't have to be full-out Trekkies, but it'd be rather hard to do a good job at something you hate...

IIRC, neither Patrick Stewart nor Avery Brooks were fans of Trek before being cast. Stewart apparently used to tease one of his RSC co-stars who had appeared in Dr Who.

Plus from any interviews I've seen with Tudyk, he seems to have a rather dry and sarcastic sense of humour (on one of the Firefly commentaries, he describes Gina Torres as 'homely'), so I wouldn't put too much stock in the 'for pussies' jibe.

[Christopher]

Captaindemotion wrote:

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IIRC, neither Patrick Stewart nor Avery Brooks were fans of Trek before being cast. Stewart apparently used to tease one of his RSC co-stars who had appeared in Dr Who.

That was Lalla Ward, who played Ophelia in a 1980 BBC production of Hamlet opposite Stewart as Claudius and Derek Jacobi as Hamlet. She was starring as Romana in Doctor Who at the time, and Stewart teased her for slumming in a sci-fi show. I reviewed it on my blog recently. Ironically, Ward was one of multiple performers in that production who either had done Doctor Who already (Geoffrey Bateman, Emrys James, and Stuart Fell, along with composer Dudley Simpson) or would do it in the future (Geoffrey Beevers, Jacobi, and Claire Bloom).

And you're right about Tudyk -- he was probably joking.

[captcalhoun]

i wouldn't call Gina 'homely'... but i wouldn't call her attractive either. one thing that ruined the Jasmin arc on Angel for me was that i couldn't go with the idea that everyone loved Jasmin because she was so beautiful when she was played by an actress i didnt find even slightly attractive. for me it killed my immersion in the story.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Christopher wrote:

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Nicholas Meyer never cared for ST

Bloody hell...

Captaindemotion wrote:

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Plus from any interviews I've seen with Tudyk, he seems to have a rather dry and sarcastic sense of humour

Quite. So did everybody else on that show. No wonder I couldn't stand it.

so I wouldn't put too much stock in the 'for pussies' jibe.

I like to think I've developed 'taking things too seriously' into an art form.

[Sci]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i wouldn't call Gina 'homely'... but i wouldn't call her attractive either. one thing that ruined the Jasmin arc on Angel for me was that i couldn't go with the idea that everyone loved Jasmin because she was so beautiful when she was played by an actress i didnt find even slightly attractive. for me it killed my immersion in the story.

I mean, you do realize that they didn't love her because she was beautiful, they loved her because they were under a spell and beauty was one of their justifications, right?

[captcalhoun]

i know they were under her spell but it still kinda didn't work for me that she was supposedly so beautiful and to me, she wasn't.