The #PerfectlyFlawed Ideal Cast with Cecelia Ahern

Now this will definitely be my last post for a while. I'm so pleased to welcome best selling author, Cecelia Ahern onto the blog to tell us all about her ideal cast for her thrilling sequel to Flawed, Perfect. 

First of all, my disclaimer is that my boring answer to this question is that I’m really happy with any actor who is qualified for the role - it does not have to be somebody famous, or already established, I love new talent! However, that is not the answer anybody wants to hear so in order to play along here are some of the thoughts I have on who’d be great in these roles!

Celestine:

Celestine moves from logical girl who follows the rules, who thinks in black and white, to being somebody who questions authority, who questions society, who questions herself and as a result discovers her own strong opinions, finds her voice and becomes a person of influence and a great natural leader. She is somebody who is quietly confident which is a great strength, she doesn’t scream and shout her views but through her actions and her inner strength inspires. I think actresses Zendaya Coleman or Amandla Stenberg both have this inner confidence that inspire people, are passionate activists, and most importantly they are great actresses. 

Judge Crevan: 

Bosco is a ‘bad guy’ but he’s not a cartoon villan. He’s human, he’s charming, he’s likeable. People trust in what he says. He sees himself as somebody who is trying to protect his country from falling into the hands of weak and bad leaders. His family started the Guild to push out any weaknesses in government leadership so that they would never suffer as a nation again, and while he believes his actions are for the good of his fellow people, of course he is going about it in the wrong way. He also goes even further when his wife passes away and brands the doctor for missing the diagnosis. So for this reason I think Nikolaj Coster- Waldau (Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones) would be an ideal Judge Crevan. Or how about Tom Cruise? A likeable bad guy, someone who can pass shocking laws with soothing talk and a twinkle in his blue eyes.

Summer:

Celestine’s mother is a famous model. I picture somebody like Heidi Klum, Gwyneth Paltrow, January Jones. Summer appears serene and calm at all times, she believes in always presenting her best side, putting her best foot forward and being appropriate at all times. She believes that people should always appear perfect and never let their weaknesses or faults be shown, in character and in appearances. 

Art: 

Art is Bosco Crevan’s son and is charming like him. While his dad is more serious in his professional role, and they are both grieving the loss of Art’s mother, he copes by being the funny guy. He turns every dark serious situation into something funny as it’s the only way he can cope. Dylan Minette? I watched him in ‘Alexander and the Terrible Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’ and thought that he was terrific. 

Ewan:

Celestine’s little brother is terrified of her when she becomes Flawed. He’s afraid to talk to her, he’s afraid to pass the salt at the dinner table in case he’s seen as helping her - which is against the law. It’s heart breaking for Celestine to see how terrified her brother is, and the trauma he’s going through. 

Angelina Tinder:

Natalie Dormer. I think she’d be a fantastic Angelina. She can be so haunting, which is what Angelina becomes after she’s branded. She can’t cope at all with how her life has changed, it seems to darken her soul.

Colleen Tinder:

Elle Fanning would be a brilliant daughter to Angelina. She feels betrayed and incredibly hurt by Celestine when Celestine ignores her after her mother’s branding and decides to get revenge, which goes horribly wrong. 

Carrick:

I’m in love with Carrick. He barely speaks in Flawed, Celestine and his communication is based on expression, on shared looks, hands pressed up against the glass. I thought it would be so powerful to have a silent relationship. Celestine learns to read his moods through his eyes. He is very vocal in Perfect and has an important role and I don’t know of any actors who can play him but somebody with a really strong presence, determined, mysterious and solid. When Celestine sees him first she thinks he’s a soldier, he has that demeanor and physique and in a way she’s right. 

Alpha:

Octavia Spencer. I love Octavia. She can in fact, be anyone she wants to be! Alpha’s mission is to protect the children of the Flawed, she has desperately tried to have her own children and can’t. Her husband has been branded Flawed and for that reason can’t adopt but she sets up charities for families affected by the Flawed community and takes in children who leave the FAB institutions and is secretly doing all that she can for the rights of Flawed children. 

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Thank you Cecelia for picking an excellent cast. 

Summary

Celestine North lives in a society that demands perfection. After she was branded Flawed by a morality court, Celestine's life has completely fractured - all her freedoms gone.

Since Judge Crevan has declared her the number one threat to the public, she has been a ghost, on the run with the complicated, powerfully attractive Carrick, the only person she can trust. But Celestine has a secret - one that could bring the entire Flawed system crumbling to the ground.

Judge Crevan is gaining the upper hand, and time is running out for Celestine. With tensions building, Celestine must make a choice: save only herself, or risk her life to save all the Flawed. And, most important of all, can she prove that to be human in itself is to be Flawed…?

To find out more about Cecelia Ahern: 

Twitter / Website

Want to catch the other stops on the blog tour? 

The Witch’s Kiss goes to the movies

Today I am pleased to welcome  talented authors and sisters, Katherine and Elizabeth Corr onto the blog, to talk about the cast and settings they would use if The Witch's Kiss was made into a movie. 

Katharine Corr

Elizabeth Corr

As readers - and as writers - we see the settings, the action and the characters from books inside our heads. Everybody does. It’s why turning a book into a film can be so fraught with danger: is the director going to trample all over the readers’ - and the writer’s - cherished ideas of how the film should look? Are they going to take terrible liberties with the plot or the setting? We can both name films where it’s been done well (Lord of the Rings) and where the whole thing has been an utter disaster (The Dark is Rising, aka The Seeker. Don’t even go there.) 

But still, we can hardly pretend that if someone offered to make The Witch’s Kiss into a film we wouldn’t both be jumping up and down screaming with excitement. Seeing a world one has created recreated on the big screen must be an amazing experience. So, in anticipation of that possibility, we present our recommendations for the film of the book.

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Hardwicke directed the first (and we think, the best) of the Twilight films. Everything in Twilight looked much better than the later films, particularly the vampires. We think the kind of dreamy, slightly gothic atmosphere she created would work well for The Witch’s Kiss.

Cast

We’re taking a leaf out of J K Rowling’s book here. The Witch’s Kiss is UK YA, so we’ve chosen British actors .

 Merry: Kaya Scodelario

Merry is our hero. We always think of her as a cross between Buffy and Maleficent (once she finally realises her own potential). Kaya Scolelario looks quite a lot like we imagine Merry and she was born in the next county from where the book is set. She’s also already played a character in a strong sibling relationship in Skins.

Leo: Alex Pettyfer

We really liked Alex Pettyfer in I Am Number Four. He’s physically about right for the part of Leo, Merry’s elder brother. Plus, he looks like the kind of big brother we both desperately wanted when we were teenagers.

 Jack: Jamie Campbell Bower

Jack is our Sleeping Beauty - a cursed Anglo-Saxon prince who falls asleep in the 6^th century and wakes up in the 21^st. Jamie Campbell Bower would be perfect: he’s got a face that looks like it could come from a Pre-Raphaelite painting and exactly the right hair. And we really loved him in The Mortal Instruments.

Gwydion - Tom Hiddleston

Who better to play the evil wizard Gwydion than Tom Hiddleston? He does such a good line in villains. One of us in particular is Team Loki. *Sigh*.

Ruby: Nathalie Emmanuel

Ruby is Merry’s clever, super-stylish best friend and a strong character in her own right. We first saw Nathalie Emmanuel in Game of Thrones as another strong character: Missandei, the friend and counsellor of Daenerys.

Gran: Judi Dench

Gran is a formidable woman: head of her coven and an internationally renowned witch. After watching the amazing Judi Dench play the head of the British secret service, we think she could pull it off.

Setting: the Surrey Hills

Stunning countryside within easy distance of London. There are even handily positioned film studios at Shepperton. Besides, Tillingham is loosely based on Farnham. 

****

Published June 30th 2016 by Harper Collins 

Summary

Sixteeen-year-old Meredith is fed-up with her feuding family and feeling invisible at school - not to mention the witch magic that shoots out of her fingernails when she’s stressed. Then sweet, sensitive Jack comes into her life and she falls for him hard. The only problem is that he is periodically possessed by a destructive centuries-old curse. Meredith has lost her heart, but will she also lose her life? Or in true fairytale tradition, can true love’s kiss save the day?

   

The Movie Maker with Lucy Saxon

Today I am pleased to welcome author, Lucy Saxon onto the blog to tell us who she would love to cast as her lead characters in her latest YA novel, The Almost King, published this month with Bloomsbury.

Movies are great. Movies based on books are even better; they allow you to imagine the story in a whole new way, bringing characters to life and allowing for a different level of depth to be explored. 

I spend far more time than I probably should imagining what my books would be like as movies — one of my favourite things to do when I have writers block is to spend hours on the internet trying to find the perfect actors and actresses for my characters. It’s hard — obviously there’s no telling how they’d take to the role in real life — but going on looks and what I’ve seen them in before, a girl can dream, right? I’m not saying these actors would be perfect, but short of plucking the characters directly out of my head and into corporeal existence, they’re pretty close.

Nicholas Hoult is top of my list to play Aleks, my main character in The Almost King. He’s got the right sort of look, and is still about young-looking enough to convincingly play a seventeen year-old! With his older brothers played by Harry Lloyd (Grigori), Colin Morgan (Torell) and Andrew Lee Potts (Maxim), I’m sure the family resemblance could work well enough, and Nicholas Hoult is a truly stellar actor who could easily carry off Aleks’ many adventures.

The pair of risk-taking brothers, Drazan and Zhora, would be played by Ben Barnes and Sebastian Stan respectively. I love both these actors separately, and could imagine them having the same sort of camaraderie together that Drazan and Zhora have. 

As for my leading lady, I would love for Saria to be played by Lily James; her character in Downton Abbey actually reminds me a fair bit of Saria in a lot of ways, and she’s really coming into her own as an actress with Cinderella. 

The role of Luka, my mad mechanic, goes to the one and only Sir Ian McKellen. Because, well, obviously. 

Over at the Compass, I’d have Bodan played by Sean Bean, with Helen McCrory as his wife Ksenia. Sean Bean has the sort of rough charm I imagine from my friendly landlord, and Helen McCrory, like Ksenia, is a woman who is not to be messed with. 

Georgie Henley is my pick for Raina, Aleks’ no-nonsense best friend and pseudo-sister in his new home. Mostly because I’m of the firm opinion that Georgie Henley should be in most things. I think she could do wonders with bringing Raina’s character to the big screen.

I always imagined Jarek, Aleks’ barracks-mate, as Tom Felton. I live a Draco Malfoy Appreciation Lifestyle, and sometimes that creeps into my writing. Just a little bit. 

The villain of the hour goes to Tom Hiddleston, because as we’ve all seen he can play evil superbly. Shulga is cold, cruel and power-hungry; all of which are no problem for Hiddleston. Plus, he can pull off a blond moustache remarkably well.

Last but not least is Kara, who would be portrayed by Naomie Harris. After seeing her as Moneypenny, I’m pretty confident she could have the right sort of attitude for the Captain. 

That’s about where I stopped myself on the casting, in order to actually finish writing the book, but I’d say that’s enough to give any hopeful production company something to think about. My books becoming movies would be an absolute dream come true, though sadly by the time that happens, if it ever does, most of my dream cast will have likely aged out of their roles. Clearly I’ll just have to do the whole thing again in a few year’s time! For productivity’s sake, of course.

The Almost King by Lucy Saxon 

Sequel to Take Back The Skies. Published this week by Bloomsbury Books.

Summary 

In the second book in this sprawling saga, Aleks is the youngest of four brothers, each with his future predictably mapped out. But Aleks wants more than a life in his father’s shop. So when he hears his parents worrying about money, he decides to save them the cost of his keep by running away.

Aleks joins the army—but when that doesn't answer his problems, he breaks the law and deserts. Wanted and alone, he heads north, where he stumbles into love, adventure, and a skyship he might be able to call home . . . if he can evade the soldiers pursuing him.

Prepare for another sweeping adventure by nineteen-year-old Lucy Saxon in a series that seamlessly blends genre elements and a compelling contemporary voice. 

To find out more about Lucy Saxon:

Website / Facebook / Twitter