What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

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CMac
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What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by CMac »

This is something I do for fun--okay, so I don't get out much. :lol:

When I'm reading, I try to picture the characters and scenes as if they were real, using my vivid imagination. I have done this since I was a kid, and this is why I take such immense pleasure in reading and writing--because if you allow it, it will take you places.

Anyway, there are some characters I picture looking like RDA--or, if I had my way with dream movies and casting, he would play these characters. The first one is Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. If you've ever read that, he's a very intense, brooding, troubled, and tormented character--not unlike Ray Bellano or Bradley in Beyond Betrayal. You want to hate him because he can be vicious and violent, but at the same time you feel for him. There is a balance of danger and vulnerability to him that I think RDA does so well when he plays this kind of character. Also, he's described as having dark hair and eyes.

The second one is Hamlet--another tormented character. It always intrigues me to wonder what RDA would have done with Shakespeare. I know he's probably too modest to think he could do it, but I believe he could have.

I guess I'll also admit that he is the model for the main character in the story I want to write. I can't help it--I uh...admire him that much. :oops:

Are there any characters in any book you've ever read where you thought, "This would be so cool if RDA had done this!" or you just picture the main character as him?

Let me know what you think. Maybe I'm the only one who does this. Again--I'm weird. :lol:
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Annelies
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by Annelies »

Wah haha CMac what a fantastic idea.... I love to read and see pics like you do.... I have read Pandora 's Clock, Richard played James ofcourse, and what I loved in that book is that even his aftershave was described so I could almost smell him and I could imagine it perfectly with Rick... Don't know if you know the books of Mankell, about the detective Wallander but I could imagine Richard playing it.., at the end the guy always takes great risks and is alone with the bad guys and trusts his feelings and is nicely stubborn.. love it!
Thanks for bringing up the topic and WELCOME :D
Lots of love,

Lies

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CMac
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by CMac »

No, I haven't read the detective books you're referring to, but when I do read mysteries, I almost always picture the detective characters as him, too (unless they're female, of course. ;) :lol: ).

Thanks for the welcome! :D
Captainvale
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by Captainvale »

Oh my, this is hard question for me. Yes he could be a great Hamlet or Heathcliff...but, I like his sense of humor and sharp intellect. Benjamin Franklin in France during american revolution, demonstrating new hot air balloon. But he was real, not a literary character. a great Crawford of Lymond perhaps from Dorothy Dunnet Game of Kings. Or the character from sci fi Dickinson author writing about a man seeing through alien eyes... the alien "keysman". Can't remember title, now. Or narrate environmental documentaries, like Redford did for wolf songs, back in 1970's: he has a great voice.
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Caty
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by Caty »

Great topic!
And I understand how you imagine pictures when reading a book. I do the same, I like reading sometimes more than watching a movie, because it's a movie in my head. And some books I can read again and again.
I read also tons of fanfiction, SG1 naturally, and I'm a shipper so it's not hard to guess how my protagonists look like :lol: :lol:
But if I read a good novel, the hero looks like RDA and if it has a tragical end I can cry like it is real life.

I'm hopeless romantic :oops: :oops: ;)
"No matter how hard the past,
you can always begin again.
"

(Buddha)
CMac
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by CMac »

One of the reasons I think of him as Hamlet has to do with MacGyver and how many times he seemed to be holding a skull in that show, like in Secret of Parker House. I love his expression when Penny says to him, "Well, that would sound more convincing if you weren't holding a human skull". :lol: When I first saw that, the thought that popped into my head was, "Ah! RDA as Hamlet." ;) Actually, that play does have a lot of witty lines if played right, and a lot of sarcasm, too.

Gosh, there are many other plays, books, etc. where I picture the main character looking like him...does anyone else want to share? I think this is kind of fun! :D
CMac
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by CMac »

Another character I sometimes picture as him is Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. The character comes from humble beginnings but works hard to become wealthy to impress his old love. What he did to obtain his money is shady and a bit suspect, and he is not exactly a saint, and there's an element of mystery to him, too. I guess I just like to picture RDA as the romantic hero (or antihero) from these books and plays--a little wild and sexy and mixed up emotionally. :oops: That's not to say he's really like that (although of course he is sexy). ;) I just think that when I watch him act, he is brilliant when he portrays characters like this. As much as I love him as MacGyver, I'm starting to like him in his "darker" roles, too.
CMac
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by CMac »

I've thought of two more...

I'm reading a novel called The Man Without a Shadow, and it is about a handsome, charismatic man who cannot form new memories due to a brain injury. He is studied by scientists for years, and one of the scientists falls in love with him, even though he never remembers her. It's a fascinating love story, and not your conventional "romance" at all. I keep picturing RDA as the man.

I also think he would have been wonderful in an adaptation for Flowers for Algernon. That's about a man with a low IQ who is given an experimental treatment to become smarter. He does--but his intelligence doesn't last, and he learns that when he wasn't smart, people made fun of him. He also falls in love with a scientist in that one, too.

Both of these books are so heartbreaking, and I can't help but ask "What if?" if RDA could have been cast in film adaptations of these two books. He is capable or conveying such immense feeling in his roles that it would have been stunning to watch.
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Caty
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Re: What literary character do you picture looking like RDA?

Post by Caty »

I guess most of you know the "Bourne ..." movies like "The Bourne Identity"?
Many years ago I got the novels about it from my sister. I always imagined RDA as Jason Bourne.
Some years later, when the fist of the Bourne-movies aired on german TV I first didn't recognized the plot of the novels.
But when I got it, that Bourne should be the hero of one of my favorite crime novels, I couldn't believe which actor they choose.
I imagined him as a mature 'manly' man, not as young and milk sop as Matt Damon.
Do I need to tell you, that I didn't read those novels again?
"No matter how hard the past,
you can always begin again.
"

(Buddha)
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