Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Ta'veren

For Rand al'Thor, the central character and, for me, hardest role to cast, I ended up selecting Merlin's Tom Hopper. Coming from a popular fantasy show can't hurt (he plays Percival), plus he's 6'5" (Rand's height actually is important) and would look believable with red hair (his hair actually looks a little red to me).

The only real drawback is that as of this writing he's 28, but I doubt that will cause that much of a problem because he has a boyish face, which will fit with the fact that I aged the main cast for added realism (and the fact that if it looks like a show for teens, adults may feel silly watching). I'll admit I don't know much of Hopper's work (I don't watch Merlin), but in some youtube clips I watched, I found him to be perfectly acceptable for Rand.

For Perrin Aybara, I decided to go with Game of Thrones's Joe Dempsie (right), and while he won't be the last name I pick from that show, I tried very hard not to cast too many people from there. I picked him because when I saw how much muscle he put on for Season Two, my first reaction was "Holy crap, that's Perrin!" At 25, he's a good age for the role, and like I said, he's already got the muscle. He also seems like he could play a genuine nice-guy. Perrin's a true gentleman, and a teddy-bear with muscles, and Dempsie is a likeable actor. Also, unless they take a seriously different direction than the books, Dempsie's contract for Thrones shouldn't last very long past this coming season.

Another 25-year-old actor, in this case Augustus Prew (left), is my pick for Matrim "Mat" Cauthon. I had a hard time with this one, but I picked Prew because he just seems like he's good at playing puckish guys, either with good hearts or without. Prew's got this tinny, high voice, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing where Mat is concerned. Like I said in my first post, I'm thinking his love of gambling and women should be played up, making him seem more like a medieval frat boy than a childish prankster. Not that this isn't true to the character at all.

Next up: the major supporting heroes!

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