Casting, etc (largely OT)

[GulPlum]

Comments on several posts in one.

First, I'd like to agree with everything backstagemystic said about Snape's 
age in canon (early 40s), for the same reasons.

Second, re. Mark Radcliffe. He is absolutely no relation to Dan and his 
dad. Mark Radcliffe is American, and a friend and business partner of Chris 
Columbus. He's co-producer on all of Columbus's films through their 
production company 1492 Pictures (any doubt where the name came from?) :-)

Another issue. It's common for people to compare the casting of the HP kids 
to Beverly Hills 90210, but there's one major difference. I get the 
impression that throughout BH90210 (I never watched it) they were just 
pretty much generic older (American) teenagers and what they got up to was 
far more important than what they looked like. Besides, from my limited 
knowledge of the series, it wasn't really a "character" piece. It's also 
hardly the only US TV series to be centered on older teenagers who are set 
at a permanent age of about 17-19 for a whole multi-season series. The 
classic Happy Days and the current Buffy are more examples.

If we want to look at realistic teens, where the basic idea behind the 
series is kids growing up, we should look at Wonder Years or the current 
Malcolm In The Middle (both of which I have been known to watch 
sporadically, although I'm not very deeply into either). In those, the 
actors are roughly the age of the characters they play (if a little older, 
as I understand it), and just as The Wonder Years finished when the central 
character finished school, I expect the same to be true of MITM. Does 
anyone follow Sabrina The Teenage Witch? Does she get older from season to 
season?

Of course, when it comes to the later HP movies, the actors will be a few 
years older than the characters, but that's hardly going to be an issue. 
Even without using the "permanent teenagers" TV series as examples, there's 
no need for the kids to stop playing those parts just because, say, a 17 
year-old Dan will be playing a 15 year-old Harry.

I don't think it's irrelevant that all talk of the kids "outgrowing" their 
roles has come exclusively from the production camp (particularly 
Columbus). This is all a smokescreen. Columbus & Co have their own ulterior 
motives. For one thing, they have to balance the pros and cons of tying 
kids with unproven actual acting talent and possibly waning interest to 
long-term contracts at a fixed rate against making individual (financial) 
deals for each movie.

Whilst the core HP movie audience (let's face it, 9-12 year-olds) don't 
give a jot about whether the kids can act, but on the basis of two (soon, 
three) movies have a definite image of these actors playing these parts, 
the more discerning audience consisting of us adult fans of the books and 
the parents of the core audience (not to mention the critics) do expect 
just a little more.

It's fine for 10-13 year-olds to base an acting career on nothing but charm 
(which the HP cast has in abundance) but after that, one expects just a 
little more depth in the performance, and especially in the Potterverse, 
where Harry and Ron in particular have some increasingly complex 
characterisation to portray.

Don't get me wrong, Dan is a charming, intelligent and witty boy, and his 
parents have every right to be proud of him. But is he a good screen actor? 
Based on CoS, I would say no. Then again, so much of his poor performance 
is down to the watered-down script and lacklustre direction and editing, 
that I prefer to keep my own counsel until I've seen PoA.  I'll add Tom 
Felton to my list of doubts; Emma's playing very close to her own character 
as far as I can tell so her abilities are something of an unknown; Rupert 
has yet to be stretched - the CoS script's parody of Ron gave him very 
little opportunity to show what he might be able to do.

The thing is, if PoA shows little improvement in the acting stakes over the 
previous two movies, or if the actors' financial demands start getting more 
than the production team can accept, they just might decide that one or 
more of the kids have to go, a decision they will have to balance against 
any inevitable backlash from the kids in the audience. This of course also 
needs to balanced with the kids'  interest in continuing at all, and their 
parents' desire to *allow* them to continue.

Richelle:

>Totally OT comment here, do people in the UK *really* refer to all 
>Americans as Yanks?

Yes. "Yanks" is a general term for anyone from the USA (basically, because 
calling you all "Americans" is misleading as it could mean anyone from the 
whole continent; some people, myself included, may be found to use the term 
"USian").

Richelle again:

>I am starting to wonder if everyone who was in David Copperfield will at 
>some point turn up in, or at least be rumored to have been cast in one of 
>the HP films!

Bear in mind that every Christmas the BBC do a big novel adaptation and get 
lots of stars involved. For the stars, these are seen as a way to do a 
character that their usual audience won't have seen them play without 
having to spend *too* much time on a set. As a result, the credits for any 
one of the BBC's big Christmas numbers looks like a who's who of British 
acting talent. Of course, the big one for HP fans will always be David 
Copperfield because Dan had a reasonably large part in it. :-)

I agree with Columbus on his praise for the British acting community, who 
(as a rule) don't tie themselves down to one production company or project 
on a long-term basis (this particular tendency in the US media has recently 
come to the UK, with ITV signing up several big name actors for HUGE sums 
of money, for whom they create "vehicles"; few of these have actually been 
successful). I admire British actors who treat TV series and one-offs, 
movies, commercial and repertory theatre with the same respect and move 
from one to the other with ease. Of the HP cast, Richard Griffiths or Zoe 
Wannamaker are great examples.

It's when some of them become superstars and move to Hollywood that this 
work ethic falls to pieces. Also, this no longer seems to apply to the 
younger generation of actors, who seem to find their niche and stick to it. 
More's the pity.

Beth:

>British and you look like James? Ah, but you're not single, are you? Do you
>have a single brother who looks like James?

Other way around. I'm single, my brother is not. And we both look 
James-like (him more than me, actually). :-)

As it happens, I feel a deep affinity with MWPP: when I was at school, we 
had our own little group of four (me, Peter, Mark and George) and although 
the characterisations aren't quite parallel, I see a lot of the four of us 
in the four of them. I was a bespectacled intellectual, Peter was a sporty 
"bruiser", George was the quiet one who only ever spoke when he had 
something important to say (and was the glue which kept us together) and 
Mark was a bit of a hanger-on and just a little incompetent.

Unlike MWPP, we were mainly known for doing *good* things rather than bad 
ones (not that we wanted to ingratiate ourselves with the teachers, it's 
just that all four of us always found it more fun to make things rather 
than destroy them).

Although of course we were teenagers, and we did get into the odd scrape - 
this mainly consisted of breaking things when we got a little 
over-exuberant, but we were always willing to repair what we'd broken (as 
long as we didn't have to pay for it from our meagre allowances).  :-)

We've remained friends ever since (as then, Peter and I are closest) and 
I'm the only one without kids, though I'm godfather to both Mark's and 
Peter's first-borns. As it happens, I'm off to stay with Peter and family 
next weekend (for reasons we can't remember, I'm referred to in their house 
as "Uncle Bob"). :-)

We also had our own nemesis, who was a really nasty piece of work and 
stupid to boot.  I've no idea what he's doing now, but I do know that he 
spent some significant time in prison...

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who thinks he's now caught up with all the threads.