Casting Sacred Games

Third in Marshal's book blogs is My Book, The Movie, in which authors have a go at casting actors for their characters (without the inconvenience of needing the actors to agree...).

It's surprising how difficult this can be!  Each time I have a go at it, I come up with a different answer.  It's not so much that the characters have changed, but that perception of the actors changes over even a few years.  Though looking back on it, I find I've cast Russell Crowe for Pythax in The Pericles Commission, and then used him for King Pleistarchus in Sacred Games.

For Diotima I had Rachel Weisz in The Pericles Commission, my wife Helen as Diotima in The Ionia Sanction, and now with Sacred Games I think I might have hit on the perfect Diotima.  I'm rather pleased with my idea for Nico too.

2 comments:

Colin Smith said...

Interesting that the people you cast are, for the most part, older than the characters in the book (at least as I recall, Nico and Diotima are in their early 20s..?). Although I think your casting for Gorgo is spot-on, both in age and character. Interesting and fun! :)

Gary Corby said...

Few could eclipse me for ignorance of famous actors, so they have to have been around a long time for me to have ever heard of them at all.

Despite which you might be astounded to hear that not only do I have a Bacon Number, but it's the low, low value of 3.

How is this possible? Hugo Weaving was a few years ahead of me at school. By sheer coincidence Weaving and I and a few hundred others were onstage together in school musicals. Weaving, who's been in The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, Lord of the Rings, and a trillion other great films has a Bacon Number of 2. Therefore I am 3!