I missed my calling (I really did)

I should have been a casting director. I would be such a movie casting goddess, particularly if I had little people around who could give me options and make me lists of everyone of the right age and sex to choose from, and head shots to remind me what they all looked like. I would find people and I would attend auditions and I would choose people extremely appropriately, and then when books got made into films there would be no more of this me-being-disappointed-in-the-actors-they-chose business.

For instance, whose idea was it to cast David Thewlis as Lupin? (I do seem to go on and on about Lupin. I really love him, however. Fangs are sexy. I'm going to make Lupin his own category.) If anyone had any sense or judgment they would have cast David Wenham -- just missed it by one surname, blast them! Did you see The Two Towers? David Wenham is practically Lupin in that already, with that exactly-perfect-for-Lupin kind of underneath tortured misery that he knows he can't do anything about and he's just had to learn to live with.

(Aside: HOLY SHIT. He was also the scary white-faced crazy writer in Moulin Rouge that stopped writing the show because adorable Ewan McGregor showed up. Remember that guy? That was David Wenham. You totally didn't know that -- probably because you had no idea who David Wenham was. Well, anyway, that just shows he's versatile and could convert his Faramir tortured misery into Lupin tortured misery.)

Okay, and here's another example. Eric Bana has just been cast as Henry in The Time-Traveler's Wife, which is fair enough and I'm sure he'll be all right, but the thing is that my sister and I had already cast that part and we had given it to Billy Crudup. We were very contented with our selection! Billy Crudup! He is elegant and dangerous and I know that Henry's supposed to be tall but what the hell so is Clare and they've given that part to Rachel McAdams and anyway Billy Crudup acts tall terribly well so it would have been JUST PERFECT. Silly casting people. I was so sad about the Billy Crudup thing that I conceived a desperate desire to read The Time Traveler's Wife again, and the library didn't have it and I was forced to buy it from the Waterstone's on campus. That's what happens when there are casting mistakes: I spend £7.99 and probably stay up all night reading my new book and abjectly weeping.

I am currently in the process (it's a process. it takes a long time. luckily so does preparing to make movies) of casting Greensleeves, one of the best books in all the world and also containing the character that I actually would choose to marry out of all the fictional characters in all the world, including Ramses and John Tregarth and Mr. Rochester (before and after the fire) and Lupin and everyone. Nezabeth, who (curse her!) always wants to marry the same people as I do, could have everyone else we want to marry in the whole world, as long as I got Sherry from Greensleeves. Anyway I have decided that James McAvoy should be him even though he's not tall enough (he is a fencer, however, and a fire-eater which is completely irrelevant but I thought I'd let you know) and now I am working on the other main characters, and it pleases me very much.

A while ago my little sister and I cast Howl's Moving Castle, I believe very successfully, but I've forgotten who was who. We did a really good job. Christian Bale wasn't in it. If I were the casting director for the world, Christian Bale would never work again except in really obnoxious parts with people who have pretentious mouths and irritating voices. And I would send a note to Jonathan Rhys-Meyers telling him to get rid of his cheeks if he wants to play Howl, or ANYONE ELSE EVER.

For this all to work, however, the actors would all have to agree to be in the movies I was casting, so I'd also have to be in charge of making actors be in films (I don't know what job that would be); and then as well I'd have to be in charge of making them play it properly, so really I guess what I'm describing as my calling is The Person With The Final Say Over Everything In Films Ever. And that's not a job at all. So I guess it's best I stick to writing.