Casting for the HP movies

[Anne <urbana@charter.net>]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "shelaghcol <ShelaghC at a...>" 
<ShelaghC at a...> wrote:
> IMHO, what the folks that put these movies have going 
> against them the *most* are the expectations of those who read the 
> books.
> 
> And because of fanfic and readers' imaginations, most people 
already 
> have decided *exactly* what most of the upcoming characters should 
> look like. Witness all the "casting speculation" threads at FAP. 
> 
> The problem with such expectations is that when those expectations 
> aren't fulfilled, people start condemning the production before it 
> even begins filming. ....<snip>

> While I had my own preferences particularly where Sirius was 
> concerned, I also had made up my mind that the people in charge of 
> finding just the right person to play each of the parts so far have 
> done remarkably well and resolved not to be critical in advance of 
> their decisions.
> 
> In short: give these actors a chance - you may find that they do 
the 
> job better than any of you could possibly have expected.

Another point to consider is the "Rubik's Cube" nature of booking 
talent. The casting director (who I believe is a woman?) has to go 
through her database (and yes she MUST have a database to cast a 
movie with this many characters) and decide which actors are within 
the realm of possibility for the movie, in terms of not only talent 
and physical resemblance to the characters, but also *availability*. 
Actors tend to be booked not only months ahead of time, but often for 
months AT A TIME. So trying to get people who meet the physical 
requirements, can bring the right kind of talent to their roles, are 
within the right salary range, AND are all available at the same time 
has got to be pretty daunting a lot of the time. Of course for an 
extremely high-profile project like POA, there are probably actors 
coming out of the woodwork, throwing their head shots and resumes at 
the casting director (via their agents).... like I said, the entire 
activity is like a Rubik's Cube. I'd hope there would be a certain 
amount of excitement to this line of work. You'd better be excited 
about who you've cast ...

Anne U
(not very good at RC, but might enjoy being a booking agent - for 
music groups:-)