What Characters! If My Books Were Movies...

 Earlier last week, I was annoyed...Yeah, we'll go with that one... over my husband's choice in shows to binge watch and how I enjoy prioritizing my peace over silly tv-drama. But that post, and the annoyance I felt over that show, got me to thinking...

1. I don't ever want to write drama filled stupidity just for the sake of it.

2. If my books ever did make it to a movie/television series, who do I see playing my characters?

I know, you can totally see how the two thoughts are related.

I'm sure other authors do this about their characters. Dream about the day your work is so wildly popular that it's talked about by every, has TV shows or movies made about it with their favorite actors who are all huge fans, and your books are chart toppers everywhere.  And then you get to have photos with your favorite actors, go all fangirl on them, and get tattoos of their autographs because it means so much to you. 

Yeah, you know the dream. 

My problem is, I don't watch a lot of TV or movies any more. I don't have celebrity worship. I don't even have a favorite modern day celebrity (either film or song) because they always end up disappointing me because they are total turds in reality and then I can't ever watch anything they've ever been in or listen to anything they sing again because I don't want to give them royalties. (I hold grudges, it would seem).  My favorite show to watch without fail is On Patrol Live. All of my very favorite all time celebrities are from the 1930s and 1940s -- you know, Bob Hope, Cary Grant, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Katherine Hepburn, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello...You know, I'm really an 120 year old woman at heart. 

My husband and friends, on the other hand, don't feel the same way and have their favorites that they love to watch. In fact, I have one friend that absolutely adores Henry Cavill and Jensen Ackles, and while I agree those two are quite something to look at, she also admires other actors that I just can't help but not agree with her assessment. I'm weird when it comes to movies and shows. I'll say things like, "I like his jaw line and hair in this movie but not in anything else they do" or "I like the character they play in this show but eh, can't care less in anything else."

So you can see my failure to fantasize over celebs playing my characters which is why I'm glad that the industry has a whole bunch of people who do that and some of them cast people really well into roles.  

So, I've spent the last several days really considering hard over all of my characters and trying to look at movies and shows, thinking hard about movies and shows and I've come up with only one:

I think Josh Brolin could likely play Tom Ridley in the Portrait series. I believe he was in an Avengers movie recently (like in the last 5 years) but I do remember him from that movie about the Granite Mountain Hotshots called Only the Brave and then of course Goonies. I think he could do a good portrayal of Tom in both the first three books as well as the second three books. 

But other than that? Got nothing. 

So, I messed around with PhotoShop and asked its AI to generate characters based on descriptions. I can't say I'm totally happy with the results, but it's a start. Let me first say that I'm getting a handle on how to tell AI to do what I want. For instance, if you include the word "dark" as in dark hair, you're going to get a tanned or dark skinned person. If you say you want "four people," you're going get two or three people. If you say you want "light brown hair," you're going to get dark brown hair. If you say "dark blonde hair", you're getting a dark skinned person with blonde hair.  Yeah, so I've got a lot of training to do I suppose. But, after hours of attempts, here's what AI gave me this last week for my Portrait series....It's okay to feel "meh" over the results, cuz I do. Not at all what my imagination saw either. (These are all on my website, by the way.)

With the reminder that this is the AI gen photo Canva AI gave me for Brian and Avonlea (kinda like a book 3/post book 3 timeline)....

So, with that in mind, here we go....

To start off with... Casey, Matt, and Cody and how they *might* look in Embers to Ashes, book 4

 Now Nate, Sarah, Natalie, and Jenna and how they might look in Embers to Ashes, book 4.

Alright, so how about Tommy, Billy, Tom, and Maggie? This is how they might look in the first three books, obviously Tommy would be in his late 20s below which does not fit the time period of those three books. 

And can't leave out Brenna, Susan, Sydney, and Zane. This is how they would look by The Disruption of Forever, book 6.

And if we're doing that, we might as well try Austin, Reese, Harlow, and Howard and how they would look in Disruption of Forever, book 6.  (I think the AI gen of Harlow looks a bit like the actress who played Camille in the first few seasons of the BBC show Death in Paradise.)

Anyhow, not totally impressed. I could nitpick a lot. Lots I would like to change. But, you can see where it's going.  Anyhow, if you have any ideas on which actors you would choose to play my characters, or even which characters you'd like to see AI generations of, let me know!

There's always an adventure in an Em Brooks book! Let's see where they go. By the way, they are always available, 24/7/365 on Amazon on kindle, paperback, hardcover, and Kindle Unlimited!

Have a great day!