Paul Martin Midden's "Toxin"

Paul Martin Midden is a psychologist who currently serves as Clinical Director of a nationally-recognized treatment center. Absolution, his debut novel, was released in 2007.

Toxin, his new novel, explores the growing tension between right-wing fundamentalists and secular American culture. Here he shares some ideas for casting a film adaptation of the novel:

Toxin is a book about a senator who gets involved in a plot to alter the United States. Because so many people have been so paranoid about this kind of thing in recent years, it seems like a prime time to make a movie about it.

There are problems, of course: for the most part, senators are boring middle-aged, rich white guys, so it is not often that they figure in novels. Jake Telemark, the protagonist of Toxin, is an unrich, unpedigreed middle-aged guy who just happens to be a senator. He is also an assassin, which makes him interesting.

Who to play Jake? He is a thoughtful guy, capable of reflection, but he is also willing to take action and put plans in motion. A rumpled guy like Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn would do well because both of them have the range and complexity to pull this off. If Harrison Ford were fifteen years younger, he would have been ideal.

Now Isadore Hathaway, the love interest and fellow conspirator, needs to be tall, beautiful, bright, and ruthless. Nicole Kidman comes almost immediately to mind, especially in light of her performance in The Interpreter, where she was all of the above. But other talented women, such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Renée Zellweger, could also do a competent job.

There is a very serious FBI agent who plays a pivotal role, and I confess that I had Anthony LaPaglia in mind when I wrote the book. Mr. LaPaglia knows how to play an FBI agent (Without a Trace), and he’s naturally serious. It would be shameless pandering to cast Denzel Washington as the President of the United States; but, then again, we’re talking Hollywood here.

Another great reason for Toxin to be filmed is because of its subject matter. There are actually people out there who think—as the plotters in the novel do—that a theocratic government would be a good thing for the US and who would be willing to use unscrupulous means to bring that about. Witness the recent murder of a physician who did perfectly legal abortions or the hatemonger who shot up the Holocaust Museum. But these people are regarded as so fringe that few people take them seriously, and many people dismiss them as crackpots. This lack of attention, of course, enables them to gather power, much as the Nazis did in Germany between the wars. A movie highlighting these fanatics would nudge them out of the shadows a bit and contribute to the national discourse.

Read more about Toxin at New Books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Henry Perez's "Killing Red"

Henry Perez has worked as a newspaper reporter for more than a decade. Born in Cuba, he immigrated to the U.S. at a young age, and lives in the Chicago area with his wife and children.

Here he shares his thoughts on the principal cast of the movie should Killing Red, his first novel, be adapted for the big screen:

Like a lot of people I know, I developed an obsession for movies at an early age. I studied film, both production and theory, in college, and tend to think of my stories in a visual, cinematic way as I’m writing them.

In writing Killing Red, my debut mystery, I approached the plotting and pacing much like I would a screenplay. I got the action on the page in my first draft, making sure there was nothing there that was unnecessary or that might slow things down. I colored in many of the details in subsequent revisions.

So discussing what it might be like to see my first book turned into a film seems quite natural in a way. Killing Red is the story of Alex Chapa, a Chicago-area newspaper reporter who made a name for himself fifteen years ago when he broke the story of the capture of Kenny Lee Grubb, after a young girl named Annie Sykes escaped and led police to the mass murderer’s home. Now, less than a week before Grubb is to be executed, Chapa is summoned to the prison for one last interview. But instead of the usual death row confessional or final declarations of innocence, Grubb boasts that a copycat has been retracing his steps, and that Annie Sykes, now in her twenties, will be the final victim. Chapa has just a few days to find Annie before someone else does.

The first question authors are usually asked on the subject of their book being turned into a film concerns casting, and I’ve heard some speak candidly about having this actor or that actress in mind when they were creating a character. I never did that while writing Killing Red. Though I had a clear image in my mind of what each character looked and sounded like, I did not picture any actual people, famous or otherwise, in those roles.

The protagonist seems like a logical place to start, and Alex Chapa is not an easy character to cast. Though he’s resourceful, and ultimately heroic, Chapa is an everyman who’s got some mileage on him, and it shows. He is Cuban-American, but I’m not a hard-liner when it comes to casting an actor whose heritage matches the character’s. Still, it would be nice. Andy Garcia comes to mind right away, since he’s been the most prominent Cuban-American actor for some time. But I also like Danny Pino (Cold Case). If it were up to me I’d cast Benjamin Bratt.

Grubb, and the threat he represents to everyone in the book, haunts every page of Killing Red. That sense of impending violence can be reproduced on screen, but it takes a great performance to do it. I don’t want to give away too much, but Grubb has a couple of scenes in the book that I would imagine some actors would love to play. Josh Brolin or Mickey Rourke would knock one out of the park in that role. A reader suggested Willem Dafoe.

Author J.D. Smith recently suggested that Ellen Page would make a great Annie Sykes. That would be a bit of dream casting. And yes, she would be perfect in the role.

It’s a fact that very few crime novels are ever sold to Hollywood, and only a small percentage of those actually get made into films. Only a handful of authors are fortunate enough to see their work on screen, and just about none of the ones who do have any say over scripting or production, let alone casting.

But it’s always fun to imagine what it might be like…

Preview Killing Red, and learn more about the book and author at Henry Perez's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

R.A. Riekki's "U.P."

Ron Riekki is the author of the novel U.P..

At the end of May 2009 he shared his thinking about the director, cast, and soundtrack for a big screen adaptation of U.P.:

Tonight I walked my first red carpet. I was supposed to go with a gangsta rapper whose sister won Last Comic Standing, but he cancelled last minute, so I found myself alone at an awards show at Universal being introduced by a handler as “author Ron Riekki. He’s awesome.” I laughed each time a photo was taken. There was some guy with a cane who was supposedly heir to a billion dollar oil fortune and Dean Cain, a.k.a. Superman, talking humbly about his son and then me.

I moved to L.A. because I do have dreams of U.P. being a film. Two reasons why I’ve been confident it could happen are that the book has been Ghost Road Press’s fiction bestseller for fourteen weeks and because a friend whose opinion I respect—Rafael Alvarez (writer for HBO’s The Wire)—put the idea in my head of it being a film. Well, being here helps take things a step closer. Now it’s destiny. I figure Barfly would never have been made if Bukowski lived his life in Opelika, Alabama, so here I am ... afterwards eating free gourmet macaroni and cheese, nursing a recommended Merlot, and chatting with a producer who wanted to hear about the novel. I pitched it was full of strong roles for young actors, where they’d get to play the type of roles they tend to desire, the sort of vibrant character roles you find in Snatch or Pulp Fiction. He took my card. We’ll see.

On the drive home, I thought about this article, the recent red carpet memories showing that things can happen if you make yourself available for them to happen.

The novel’s written in four distinctive voices, four high schoolers trying to survive a brutal Michigan winter and a violent act by a local bully. For Cräig, a metalhead who insists everyone put an umlaut in his name, I imagine Emile Hirsch if he wants to pull a Christian Bale in American Psycho and hit the gym like crazy. For Hollow, a basketball player who’s the primary narrator, I imagine Jamie Bell or Joel Gelman.

Other dream credits:

antony x—Jorma Taccone (playing a white rapper)

J—Shia LaBeouf (playing a punk with cerebral palsy)

Bobbie—Kristen Stewart, Kerli, or Allison Shoemaker

Craig’s father—Larry Joe Campbell

Hollow’s father—Steven Wiig or Chris Smith

J’s father—Michael T. Weiss

director—Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Rob Zombie, or Vincent Gallo

soundtrack—Pantera, Papa Wheelie, Dokken, Subhumans, Ice Cube

This was fun, but when I’ve had my plays cast before, I never say a word. A producer tonight was talking about a difficult screenwriter he was working with, someone who refused to compromise over anything. My role is to write. Casting agents have their role. I’d love to let them do their job.

And U.P. as a film?—well, it’s one crazy novel. Laura Dave, author of London is the Best City in America, wrote, "People throw around the word 'original' to mean a lot of things, but U.P.--R.A. Riekki's fighting new novel--is original in the best sense. It constantly surprised me, and made me want to keep reading, and made me more sure of it. This novel is a winner.” Dave sold London to Reese Witherspoon. Let’s see if I have that level of luck. In the meantime, I love talking with producers, going to awards shows, and being stood up by gangsta rappers. Maybe I’m easily pleased. But I think basically I’m just happy I’m not dead. Breathing is good. Long as you’re breathing, hopes can actualize.

Visit Ron Riekki's website.

Writers Read: Ron Riekki.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jenny Gardiner's "Sleeping with Ward Cleaver"

Jenny Gardiner is the author of the award-winning novel Sleeping with Ward Cleaver. Her work has been found in Ladies Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR’s Day to Day. She likes to say she honed her fiction writing skills while working as a publicist for a US Senator.

Here she recommends a few actors to portray her characters in a cinematic adaptation of her novel, and identifies the ideal production team to take Sleeping with Ward Cleaver to the big screen:

All authors harbor a sick secret need to have their books made into films. We may not all own up to that, but it's all part of the masochism that is writing--we love to set crazy-high bars that are nigh-impossible to scale. I mean hey, SOMEONE'S books are being turned into films--why not mine? Yet all one needs to do is be in the company of a screenwriter for about ten minutes and all hopes of ever having that movie made into a film are not only dashed, but they're crushed by a steam roller, peeled off the pavement, folded in half and then again, then fed into a wood chipper for good measure. Yes, being hit by lightning is much more likely than having your book made into a movie. And some authors who have gone through the process might even argue it's more pleasurable.

But me? I hold out hope. After all, Sleeping with Ward Cleaver would make an excellent film. And it would be a cheap one to make--no expensive war scenes, no huge chase scenes. Nothing being blown up. No rental of expensive venues. No closing down the streets of a major city. Hell, you could probably film it in my backyard if you want to!

So without further adieu, here are my mindless musings on Sleeping with Ward Cleaver, the movie:

Drew Barrymore, director. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have Flower Films (co-owned by Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen) produce Sleeping with Ward Cleaver, the movie. It would be such a coup and they make such kick-ass movies and they know how to make a movie that would draw in women while also appealing to men.

I've flip-flopped a bit on the leads for this, but the more I think about it the more I think Greg Kinnear would be excellent as Jack--he can play it straight but also make the audience like him even while they want to throttle him (because in the first half of this book, Jack is a bit insufferable from Claire's point of view). But Greg might be getting a little too old...

Hmmm...Stephen Colbert might be able to pull off Jack. Josh Lucas could be good as well. Oh, how about Paul Rudd?

I'm thinking I could make a drinking game out of choose-your-preferred-star-for-your-novel game!

No wait, I've got it. In my dream casting, Matt Damon would be ideal , because he has the look--sort of "square," stuffy and buttoned down, but also handsome, and you can tell that somewhere beneath the expensive suit there's some sexy lurking in there.

Casting Claire is tricky because Hollywood is populated by emaciated actresses and Claire isn't exactly known for her svelte physique... Before Kate Winslet had such an amazing year as an actress I thought she might be able to pull off Claire, but now she's the creme de la creme in Hollywood so she's probably unobtainable.

I think in the back of my mind I was thinking someone mom-like, like Bonnie Hunt, but it needs to be a younger version of Bonnie. Diane Lane could probably work well, though I'm not sure if she's got the comedic chops to do it, because Claire is a bit of a smart-ass.

Tina Fey, maybe? She's funny yet vulnerable, which Claire is. She'd have to go blonde, though. How about Patricia Heaton? Emma Thompson could also do it as long as she doesn't appear too old on film.

Claire is at that transitional age but has young enough kids that the mom must still have the vulnerability of youth, while being on the cusp of middle age.

Oh, wait, Jennifer Garner! She's about to transition out of the ingenue casting, so is perfectly ripe for middle-aged housewife woes!

Okay, this was a perfect exercise for me. Twenty minutes of noodling this around in my head and now I've got the whole thing planned: Flower Films producing, Drew Barrymore directing, Jennifer Garner starring as Claire, and Matt Damon as Jack.

Oh, and Nancy Juvonen? I'll be waiting patiently by my phone for that call...

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Gardiner's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Sleeping With Ward Cleaver.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lori Handeland's "Any Given Doomsday"

Lori Handeland is a Waldenbooks, Bookscan, and USA Today bestselling author as well as a two-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award. She has written over forty novels, novellas and short stories in several genres--historical, contemporary, series and paranormal romance, as well as urban fantasy.

Here she shares her thinking about the cast and director of a cinematic adaptation of Any Given Doomsday:

If my book--Any Given Doomsday--could be made into a movie--or the series--The Phoenix Chronicles--into a series!--I'd love to see Halle Berry in the role of Elizabeth Phoenix.

Liz is described as exotically beautiful, mutli-racial with a great body. (Yeah, makes you want to hate her until you get to know her, then she's just one of the girls.) Halle was fantastic in Monster's Ball and her acting chops would be needed to portray the emotional journey of Liz, which begins with a pretty bad childhood.

I'd choose Christian Bale for Jimmy Sanducci. He'd bring the necessary intensity to the role of Liz's half-vampire childhood friend and sometime lover. Liz and Jimmy have a complicated, conflicted past and present that would require someone of Bale's caliber.

For the tattooed, Navajo skinwalking sorcer Sawyer, Johnny Depp would be perfect. Sawyer is a mystery--is he with them or is he against them? No one knows. Depp has always been fantastic at portraying borderline characters.

I'd like this fantastic cast to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who did such a terrific job with the movie Twilight. The adaption from book to film was dazzling.

Read an excerpt from Any Given Doomsday, and learn more about the author and her work at Lori Handeland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Margaret Fenton's "Little Lamb Lost"

Margaret Fenton is the planning coordinator of Murder in the Magic City, a one-day, one-track annual mystery fan conference in Homewood, Alabama. She is President of the Birmingham Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of the Mystery Writers of America.

Here she shares some casting ideas for a film adaptation of her new novel, Little Lamb Lost:

I love the challenge of figuring out who would play my characters! But I have a little confession to make: I’m not a movie fan.

I know, it’s a shame, right? I can’t even remember the last movie I saw. Maybe one of the earlier Harry Potters. I’m not sure why I don’t get into them. I prefer my stories on paper, I guess. So I hope the theater-buffs out there will forgive me.

Okay, having said that, who would play the characters in Little Lamb Lost? Good question. Not being a big movie fan, I’m not terribly familiar with all the actors out there, but here goes.

Claire Conover is my main character. She’s 29, and she’s a child-welfare social worker at the Department of Human Services. Claire has seen a lot of misery in her five years there, but somehow has managed to hold on to her optimistic belief that the world is a decent place. That belief may become a casualty when one of her clients is killed. I’m picturing Scarlett Johannson as Claire. She’s a great actress, for one, and she resembles Claire physically, I think, when she has blonde hair, and blue eyes. She possesses the ability to emote innocence and optimism, which fits Claire.

Grant Summerville is Claire’s current romantic interest. Claire’s best friend refers to him as the “Geek God”. He’s really good with computers and owns a computer store. He’s tall, six five or so, thin, and has gorgeous green eyes and glasses. Jon Hamm would be perfect to play Grant. His eyes…oh, I could swim in them. Grant’s hair is a little curlier than Jon’s, but I bet I could overlook it!

Kirk Mahoney is the next major character. He’s a newspaper reporter who’s hassling Claire about her case. I am totally stumped as to who should play him. No idea. He’s about six feet tall, around thirty years old, with spiky black hair and bright blue eyes. He’s got a real cocky attitude, too, that drives Claire nuts. I cannot come up with a single actor who looks like him. Thoughts, anyone?

And finally, there’s Claire’s dad, Dr. Christopher Conover. He’s an activist, and has been since the sixties. He’s got long blond hair, going gray, and a scar on his cheek from his experiences as a Freedom Rider in the Civil Rights Era. He’s based on my own dad, in a lot of ways, and the book is dedicated to him. Just for fun, I called my father and asked who should play Claire’s dad. He votes for Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford. Interesting. Both really different actors. My vote is for Michael Douglas. I love his movies. Or at least I did when I watched movies in the eighties and nineties. My father said he’d never heard of him. At least I’m not the only one out of the loop.

Read more about Little Lamb Lost and its author at Margaret Fenton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennifer Cody Epstein's "The Painter from Shanghai"

Jennifer Cody Epstein's acclaimed novel The Painter from Shanghai is a re-imagining of the actual life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist painter.

Here Epstein shares her thinking on the cast and director of a big screen adaptation of her novel:

I’m told that my novel could be a great movie, and I must say I agree. Its settings (1920’s Shanghai and Paris) characters (cruel madams, tortured artists, dashing revolutionaries) and Pan’s own, lush artwork would, if properly handled, make for a visual feast. Possibly a musical one too; or so the Taiwan Philharmonic seemed to think when it inquired about obtaining the opera rights.... Renée Fleming as Chinese prostitute-turned-post-Impressionist, anyone?

But that’s for another blog. This one’s about movies; the rights of which (to date) remain free in Painter’s case. Which isn’t so surprising: as Memoirs of a Geisha demonstrated “exotic” period films are both pricey and risky. Rob Marshall’s glittering bellyflop also neatly illustrated the pitfalls of poor casting and vision (Chinese actresses, playing Japanese geisha, speaking-- English?) Though it did mark progress from 1937’s The Good Earth, in which Paul Muni (in yellowface) plays a Chinese farmer, and Luise Rainer his heavily-made-up wife. To his credit, Irving Thalberg did want Chinese actors in these roles. But the era’s race biases (and in particular the Hays Code, which banned depictions of interethnic marriage) led MGM to refuse.

Happily, a filmic Painter wouldn’t face such hurdles, and could learn from Memoirs’ mistakes. Lesson #1: that there’s no shortage of talented Chinese actors. Lesson #2: they shouldn’t speak their lines in English--particularly if they don’t speak it in the first place. Lesson #3: Gong Li should not be cast, since she already appears in almost every Asian film ever screened for a Western audience, barring (of course) The Good Earth. In any event, she’s played Pan Yuliang already in the little-known 1992 film Hua hun.

I’d want to check with my director (ideally, Ang Lee) but I’d be inclined to cast Hao Lei. Though a lesser-known actress, she has both the sex-appeal and the broodiness to play Yuliang, as she demonstrated in Lou Ye’s (sexy, broody) Summer Palace. For Yuliang’s husband, I go straight to drop-dead hunk Chow Yun Fat (Hard Boiled, Curse of the Golden Flower), though Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers) may be more the long-suffering-husband type. Still, I’d rather watch Chow Yun Fat for two hours. (Or, say, forever.)

I’ve written Xing Xudon—the young Communist who tempts Yuliang in Paris--as tall, artsy and heartbreakingly idealistic. My first thought was hoops star Yao Ming; but at 7’6 he might just be too tall, and probably lacks the necessary dramatic range. I’d go with Guo Xiaodong instead; he played Hao’s bad-boy lover in Summer Palace. Aaron Kwok—who played a complex and deeply-flawed gambler in After This Our Exile--would be pitch-perfect as Yuliang’s opium-addicted, treasonous uncle. And Jingling, the effervescent, doomed courtesan who mentors Yuliang in the brothel, could be played by martial-arts-and-beauty-queen Michelle Yeoh. (Who knows; after suffering through Memoirs she might even appreciate the opportunity. )

Oddly enough, the role for which I have the most trouble casting is Lucien Simon, Yuliang’s French painting mentor in Paris. Gérard Depardieu? Nicolas Sarkozy? But—wait. Maybe we could bring Andy Lau back--and make him French! No, really; if they did it for Muni in 1937, they certainly can do it backwards now. It’d be oddly appropriate, actually. A kind of ironic payback for the Hays Code’s past injustices…

…which just leaves Godmother, the murderous madam from Yuliang’s teenaged days in the brothel. That actress should be older, slightly matronly in figure. Capable of playing courtesans and concubines alike. Plus, she should look good in heavy makeup. And in red….Oh, all right. I give up: Gong Li.

Sigh….Some cinematic laws will just have to be left for the next generation to break.

Learn more about The Painter from Shanghai and its author at Jennifer Cody Epstein's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Painter from Shanghai.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joshilyn Jackson's "The Girl Who Stopped Swimming"

Joshilyn Jackson's bestselling debut novel, gods in Alabama won SIBA's 2005 Novel of the year Award and was a #1 BookSense pick. Her second book, Between, Georgia, was also a #1 BookSense pick.

Here she shares some casting ideas for a film adaptation of her latest novel, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, which is now available in paperback:

Writers love to sit around and drink too much cheap wine and cast their favorite actors in the blockbuster movie version of their books. I’ve spent more than one night getting tiddly on Shiraz and casting and recasting everything I’ve ever written, even though in real life, we writers have very little control over it.

That’s probably a good thing, because I’ve never actually seen a book become a movie. Instead, I’ve seen screenwriters and directors and actors take a book as a springboard and make something all their own out of it. Movies can be directly or distantly related to their book-of-origin, but either way, they are absolutely separate works in a different medium by artists other than the author.

In The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, the main character is Laurel Hawthorne, a thirty-something wife, mother, and art quilter whose placid life explodes into chaos on the night she is visited by the ghost of her 14-year old neighbor, Molly Dufresne. The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. No one in Laurel’s whitewashed neighborhood is up to solving the unseemly mystery of Molly’s death. Only her wayward, unpredictable sister, Thalia (who has a few ghosts of her own) is right for the task. But calling in a favor from Thalia is like walking straight into a frying pan protected only by Crisco…

I’ve always said that if Michael Caine wanted to make a movie out of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming and play Laurel as a 60 year old drag queen with a heroin addiction, I would say, “That sounds like a really FRESH direction, Mr. Caine. Write me a check!”

But if they did by chance ask me? I’d cast Cate Blanchett as Thalia in a heartbeat. Her off-beat beauty, intensity and range are perfect. With Blanchett, there are a lot of Laurels that would work well, I think: Chloë Sevigny would be great, and it’s not the kind of role she usually gets.

I also think it would be interesting to have Charlize Theron play Laurel and Angelina Jolie play Thalia. They both have incredible range, are great listeners, and the interplay between the estranged sisters is, I think, the heart of the book. Also they look right: Theron is an Everywoman kind of beautiful, and Jolie has that exotic bone structure that can be gorgeous one second and downright frightening the next.

Laurel’s husband David is the lead male role---he and Thalia are in a war over who they want Laurel to be. I’d LIKE to cast Brendan Frasier. Because he is delicious. Also, anyone whose seen Gods and Monsters knows he is being HUGELY underused in the family friendly popcorn flicks he’s famous for…but he’s physically a little too broad shouldered and…did I already say delicious? David should be more gangly and ascetic, but in a sexy way. Maybe even slightly physically awkward. OH, I know! Adrien Brody. CUT! PRINT!

Read excerpts from The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, and learn more about the author and her books at Joshilyn Jackson's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Girl Who Stopped Swimming.

--Marshal Zeringue

Hillary Jordan's "Mudbound"

Hillary Jordan spent fifteen years working as an advertising copywriter before starting to write fiction. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including StoryQuarterly and The Carolina Quarterly.

Here she shares some ideas about cast and director for a film adaptation of her prize-winning debut novel, Mudbound:

The casting session for Mudbound, The Movie took place in September of 2007, six months before the book came out in hardback, on the front porch of the Blue Mountain Center, an artists colony in the Adirondacks. I was sitting with my friend Tanya Selvaratnam (actress, producer and playwright), taking in the glorious view of the lake and mountains over a glass of red wine. Tanya had just finished reading the galley of the book. She thought it would make a great movie, and that actors would want to do it because there were so many juicy roles. Who, she asked, did I have in mind for the seven main characters?

I hadn’t really thought it through, except for Laura, whom I’d always, from the very early days, imagined played by Laura Linney. She’s the right age for the role, and she’s a chameleon who can look plain as well as pretty. Her intelligence, dignity, and the appearance of vulnerability underlain by inner steel all make her perfect for the role of Laura McAllan. (Now, having seen her as Abigail Adams, I’m even more convinced she should get the part.)

We tossed around a number of candidates for my stolid, landsick Henry and ended up settling on two: Chris Cooper and David Strathairn. Both are consummate actors, but personally, I lean toward the former. He’s closer physically to how I imagined Henry; David Strathairn’s a little too lean and handsome. And I adored Cooper’s nuanced performance in Adaptation.

For Jamie I was thinking of Josh Lucas of Sweet Home Alabama — he has the killer smile and the cocky charm. Tanya also suggested an actor I wasn’t familiar with, Ryan Gosling. When I got home I rented Half Nelson and was blown away by his talent and his ability to play a layered and contradictory character, a great teacher who is also a pathetic drug addict. Who better for Jamie, my dashing, alcoholic war hero? (Though it must be said that if Paul Newman were alive and thirty, there’d be no contest.)

Tanya and I were in total agreement on Pappy: no one could play a racist Southern SOB better than Robert Duvall or Clint Eastwood (who could also direct).

For Florence we were thinking Queen Latifah or Regina King (whom I loved in Ray and Jerry Maguire). Both have the strong physical and emotional presence necessary to do justice to Florence.

Hap, we never quite nailed, in my opinion. Delroy Lindo would be terrific if he weren’t 57 (Hap’s in his early 40s). I’m open to suggestion here. Have to leave the director something to do, right?

Finally, Ronsel, who is 18-20 during the World War II scenes and 21 when he returns home. To me, he needs to be played by a young actor no one’s ever heard of (but who, after his Oscar-winning performance in Mudbound, The Movie, will have a brilliant career ahead of him).

My fantasy director is Ang Lee. His versatility excites me. He has ranged from the American West to China, from Edwardian England to suburban Connecticut. But he’s never done the Jim Crow South, and I’d love to see what he’d make of it. Clint Eastwood would be another outstanding choice (provided he agrees with Tanya’s and my casting ideas). And I wouldn’t say no to Gus Van Sant.

Now, for Mudbound, The Opera...

Read an excerpt from Mudbound, and learn more about the author and her work at Hillary Jordan's website and blog.

Watch the trailer for Mudbound (The Book).

The Page 69 Test: Mudbound.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vonda N. McIntyre's "Dreamsnake"

Vonda N. McIntyre's publications include The Moon and the Sun, The Starfarers Series, several Star Trek novels, and numerous other novels and short stories.

Here she shares some ideas for the cast of an adaptation of her Nebula and Hugo award winning novel Dreamsnake, which is based on the Nebula-winning story “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand:”

Though I’ve imagined Dreamsnake as a movie, and I wrote a script for it, until recently no actor jumped off the screen to tell me she could play Snake, the healer, the protagonist of the book.

A number of the book’s characters are a challenge to cast.

Arevin, who falls in love with Snake, has to be played by someone with both strength and sensitivity. Critics of Dreamsnake have accused the men in it of being weak, but it seems to me that those critics can’t tell the difference between a weak character and a secondary one. Especially when the book was first published, and especially in science fiction, critics weren’t used to a man as secondary to a woman protagonist.

Arevin is an incredibly strong character: he leaves everything and everyone he knows, venturing into a post-apocalyptic world, in order to correct a wrong.

Matthew Gray Gubler (Dr. Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds) has that strength, and the emotional chops to make Arevin believable. He can also express a hint of naivety about his physical attractiveness, which he will need considering almost everybody Arevin meets on his journey tries to jump his bones (politely, to be sure, but still), and he doesn’t realize it.

Sean Connery always struck me as perfect for the Mayor, but people tell me he’s retired. What a shame, if so! Whoever plays the character needs enormous charm to get away with the character’s streak of arrogance and cruelty.

When I asked folks on the Book View Café blog to comment on “Casting Dreamsnake,” a friend suggested Edward James Olmos for the Mayor, and I thought — What a brilliant idea!

Jesse, the artist, should be played a grown-up, a woman with maturity and wisdom. Regina Taylor (you might have seen her on the wonderful I’ll Fly Away; if you didn’t, seek it out on DVD) could soar with the essentially tragic role.

Three characters in the book present three different and particularly difficult challenges: North, Melissa, and Merideth.

North might have to be played partly by CGI, like Gollum. I can’t think of anyone who would fit the part of an albino giant, even with a lot of makeup.

Melissa, the scarred little girl Snake adopts, got any number of suggestions at “Casting Dreamsnake.” Every one of the talented young actors mentioned is charming and cuter than a LOLcat. But Melissa needs some real grit. She’s holding her own in a tough situation. She also has to be played by someone who’s willing to give up the extreme cuteness that’s so important to so many child actors.

The actor who comes to mind is Abigail Breslin (Olive in Little Miss Sunshine). She actually is a very beautiful girl, but Little Miss Sunshine proved she could give up some of that beauty and still steal the show from experienced and high-powered colleagues. [Note: Breslin was on The Tonight Show the other day and OMG she’s so grown up — I may have to call in a time machine for her to be in my movie. But I’m allowed; I’m an SF writer.]

Merideth is the toughest call. Merideth is a character whose sex, in the book, the reader is never told. Readers come away from the book believing they’ve been told, and with strong opinions on the subject. But Merideth’s sex is never specified.

So the actor who plays Merideth has to be believably androgynous. Would it be possible to create the character on film? I don’t know, but I think it would be interesting to try.

That isn’t the only quality the actor needs. Merideth also should be able to ride, and I mean riding of the quality of Viggo Mortensen, who has the best seat of any actor I’ve ever seen on film, but cannot be imagined in an androgynous role.

Yeah, I guess you can use stunt doubles, but that always seems like cheating to me. What you can’t do is fake it, because it always and ever looks faked.

Actors suggested for Merideth: Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game), Keanu Reaves, Orlando Bloom, Tilda Swinton, Jackson Rathbone, Katherine Moennig, Joanne Woodward, and Angela Bassett.

The problem with actors who have done androgyny or cross-dressing before, like Davidson and Swinton, is that just by casting them you give away what’s happening. Reaves or Bloom are so well-known, as soon as they appear on screen, nobody would even think to consider if the character were a woman.

Moennig and Bassett are intriguing suggestions. Woodward is a wonderful actor. Why couldn’t Merideth be 80?

But I have my heart set on Parminder Nagra.

You doubt me! She’s a beautiful woman! you say, and you are absolutely right. When she’s glammed up, she’s intensely feminine.

But take a look at this picture at the Internet Movie Database. Now can you see her as Merideth?

We know she can play soccer. I wonder if she can ride?

But what about Snake? I’ve been looking for the right actor for a long time, without success.

Until Emily Rios.

Rios has a wonderful face, a great smile, and looks as if she’s athletic enough to play a part that includes wrestling a cobra, riding a horse at a flat run across the desert, and climbing out of a crevasse. Though she’s very young (this essay will be posted within shouting distance of her 20^th birthday), she gives the impression of possessing the character to stand up against a bully twice her age and twice her size, to treat a sick child with gentleness and honesty, and to look death in the face.

Vonda N. McIntyre adds: Dreamsnake was caught in several SF publishing line meltdowns and has been difficult to find (the quaint publishing term is “Out of stock indefinitely,” which means “We don’t want to publish enough copies to sell, but we don’t want to revert the rights to you, either”) for a number of years. Now I have it back. It is available at the authors’ co-op Book View Café, serialized one chapter per week for free or for sale as a downloadable ebook with a new Afterword.

Learn more about the book and author at Vonda N. McIntyre's website.

--Marshal Zeringue