Skip to main content

Question of the day #4: The silver screen

A child of my time, throughout my life I have on occasion taken to imagining my daily humdrum existence in cinematic terms. I’d think about lighting, angles, character arcs and plot development. This was no more prevalent than in those blissful days of University. Not very healthy, perhps, but it managed to pass the time when all one had to do was drift into university, crap on a bit, and then back home for an extended session of Syphon Filter 2 on the Playstation with a glass of cider set to one side and a jazz cigarette at the ready.

In those heady days of youth (well, early-twenties), life was terribly easy: lots of reading; writing the odd poem or bit of prose; waxing lyrical on the subject of political theory and historical understanding a few hours a day; exceptional [if I do say so myself] marks and – most importantly – scholarship money.

Of course, this lifestyle afforded moments of deeply serious reflection amongst a select group of esteemed colleagues, very few of them anarchists (no shortage of nihilists, however). This reflection often entailed formulating and considering complex and drawn-out moral quandaries that frequently involved obscene acts with obscene people for obscene dollars. Another petit amusement and (more aligned with my actual point with this post), casting the movie that could be made of that specific place and time. The general consensus at the time appeared to support the casting of one of Robert Downey Jr, Hugh Grant and (cruelly) Ben Affleck in the role of Mr McCracken. Of course, I dismissed these out of hand as completely unacceptable. For one, they are all far too short, and lack the required gravitas to pull me off.

Thus, we (finally) find ourselves at today’s question!
If you were a character in a motion picture – and it does not matter if you are the central character, comic relief or merely a fleeting extra – who do you feel would be most appropriate to be cast in your role?

Now I don’t mean “who looks like you?” (although it could be that), but which actor – alive or dead – do you think might best capture the very essence of you?



[Please don’t forget that I am still open for answers on previous questions. If you haven’t revealed your favourite accent, or thought about your ideal gang name, or if you are unsure of your opinions of all things vexillology, you still have time.]

Comments

Kris McCracken said…
If pushed, I’d draft in Martin Donovan circa early-1990s. Hopefully he could pull of the accent, and he’d have no troubles height/floppy hair-wise.
Anonymous said…
Rocky from Moonstruck. Not the actor who played Rocky, but Rocky the character playing Hallam the real person.
JuJu Mountain said…
sorry from the movie 'Mask'.
Kris McCracken said…
Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz)?

An interesting choice...
USelaine said…
I auditioned others I thought I wanted (Ingrid Bergman, Reta Shaw, Fiona Shaw, Helen Hunt, Linda Hunt, Maureen O'Hara, Janel Moloney, and Loretta Young), but the only one that could almost combine all of them is Kathy Bates.
Sue said…
Oooh...this was hard...Zac and I put our heads together and came up with a couple of actors who may suffice. Of course..if my choice of Angelina Jolie was unavailable... Zac suggested Whoopi Goldberg! Though I am unsure that people would believe that one...I've never had dreads! He did suggest Susan Sarandon and I would be happy with her...especially if I could share Tim with her! Maybe Bette Davis (in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane')...I am tending to resemble her more each day and the children say I have a lot of her behaviours also!?!?? Whatever THAT means! heh heh
USelaine said…
Dammit, I left out Emma Thompson and Juliette Binoche.
blackie said…
Juliet Binoche. Every time my mum sees a movie with her in it she comes out and says "She's you!". I'm not going to argue, the woman is one sultry fox.

Stan says it should be Sandra Bullock or the girl that played Caitlin on Degrassi. Not as impressive, but probably more accurate.
Miles McClagan said…
Don't know - Kim Wilde is playing my Mum though...

Perhaps a gender bending Oscar winning female plays a male performance from Kelly Ripa?
Saretta said…
Give me Nicole Kidman!!! I think she could handle being me ;-)
Anonymous said…
I'm struggling here, but I think I might go for Emma Thompson too.

Either that or Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter).
smudgeon said…
Perhaps Alan Rickman. Perhaps in much younger days. Perhaps.

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...