F is for Film Stars

I love going to the cinema, and I love watching films wherever I am. And, while I’m not necessarily a follow of celebrity culture, I do tend to keep track of movie stars.

One of my geekier characteristics is my ability to remember who has been in which film with uncanny accuracy. If anyone watches the UK game show “Pointless” – those final round “British Actors” or “American Actresses” topics? They’re made for me. I can usually list at least ten films relevant to the actor in question, even if none of them turn out to be obscure enough to win the jackpot (although the Catherine Zeta Jones round would have netted me a fortune).

Maybe it’s because I spent most of my youth wanting to be an actress myself. But, since that’s no longer the case, the main use I have for film stars now is casting my novels.

I almost always have an actor in mind for each lead role. Sometimes they’ll be an amalgamation of two, or the character will be inspired by X actor playing Y role. Tom Felton has played quite a few of my characters in various incarnations (he made a nicely moody Ash, for one thing) and I always like to use Katharine Isabelle when I can. Let’s face it, if these characters are going to be living in my head for a while, they need a face, and sometimes it’s just simpler to pull one off the screen than make one up.

Although I never managed to find a suitable actress for Tamar of I Heard Your Voice. I think it was the breasts. They ended up of a size only matched by Linsey Dawn McKenzie. And well… nah.