Book characters and your imagination

[kateleopald]

I think actors rarely do justice to book characters in films, but over the years I have conditioned myself to watch film adaptations with an element of objectivity and separate the two as different entities (unless the adaptation really is sooooooooooo bad). As far as characters go, there's no contest. Imagination wins every time.

[Nollaig]

I rarely picture characters perfectly in my head, its more like a glimpse and it usually immediately takes on the form of an actor.

 

Having said that, I knew in my head what Heathcliff looked like, and Cathy, and Ralph Fiennes and herself were perfect in that adaption.

[Anika]

 

I also find that even if the author describes the character in detail, I create them in my mind completely different. For example, (I'm using Twilight as it's the most recent example) even when Stephenie Meyer described Edward as having bronze hair...I imagined him with black hair, dunno why. I find that watching a film adaptation always ruins that.

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HA HA!! Glad I'm not the only one that does this! Usually my imagined picture won't have the same hair color or facial features as the author's description either, but I DO try to assign an actor for each character, though, but it's NEVER a really famous one. That would distract me too much, so I select a person whose name I don't even know. Some minor actor that appealed to me somehow.