Fantasy casting

[nineveh_uk]

Apparently, they've give up on a Good Omens film and it is to be adapted for TV. Which is good, because it means it might actually happen, even with Terry Jones involved.

Assuming that fate and incestuous TV have already assured the middle child from Outnumbered, who has Just played William for Adam, and that Karen-from-Outnumbered's satanic abilities should be reserved for a 24-part adaptation of Paradise Lost, then I bring Youngest Sister and my longstanding fantasy casting to the lead roles:

Aziraphale - David Thewlis
Crowley - Paul Bettany

Just watch Gangster No. 1. They are fabulous together.

Comments

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I haven't even heard of Gangster No. 1, but I'd give a limb (or at least some useless appendages like my ears and my pinkies) to see that casting come true.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It would be an utter dream. One of the things I like about Bettany is that in every role I have seen him in he has had tremendous chemistry with his male co-stars (not necessarily sexual chemistry, but definitely chemistry).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Youngest Sister and I also think there's a lot to be said for the other way round, but ultimately whilst I don't doubt Thewlis can do demonic, I go for Bettany for the lost soul. (Not least because in abovementioned film there is a terrific moment when Thewlis sits down on the sofa and in that moment you just see Bettany's character fall completely.)

Now that it's going to be a GB TV production I am rather less worried about the casting that I would have been for a film. No fear that everyone has to look young and tanned, and reassured that they can't possibly afford Johnny Depp.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's quite violent, though I was OK and I normally don't like violent films, but the acting is terrific.

doing his "english" accent and wearing mirrored sunglasses

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Awww, too bad it's not like the stage where each can be Aziraphale one day and Crowley the next.

Also, don't kill me, but...Russel Tovey and Aidan Turner?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Not killing you, but they strike me as a little bit young - Aziraphale in particular has always seemed a faded early forties. Also, I've only ever seen one episode of Being Human so don't really know what Turner's like, though Tovey is certainly good. But if we're going with the History Boys I'll have Dominic Cooper and Jamie Parker ;-) Though I am not sure which way round.

[marginaliana]

I've recently been listening to the audio book, which has reignited my GO enthusiasm... I'll be intrigued to see how a TV version works out, especially as regards the immensely digressive portions of the book. I wonder if it'll be HHGG-like with a narrator and all.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I've never actually seen the TV HHGG... I am a failure as a child of the eighties.

Goodness knows how they'll structure it. Just as long as they cast Kate Adie as Red, and thus ensure that the audience knows what's going on in the Four Horsemen scenes.

[catkind.livejournal.com]

Hey, Mr K and I play that game too. We're agreed on David Tenant for Crowley, and tempted by Stephen Fry as Aziraphale - he doesn't exactly look angelic, but he'd rock the bookshop.
So exciting that they might actually make it, every time I read it I think it is soooo filmable. Wonder what the reaction from the religious camp will be though? I thought about suggesting it for a reading group once and backed down for fear of offending the god-fearing.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Fantasy casting is great fun. Well, as long as you're not doing it with people who say Angelina Jolie for everyone. I could go for Tennant as Crowley, but I am afraid that Stephen Fry is one of those people for whom both Crowley and Aziraphale claimed credit, whilst suspecting it was a cunning ploy of the other one.

I wouldn't have thought the sensible religious camp would mind at all - it's about apocalypse stories and human nature rather than Jesus, and insofar as he is in the text, God is on the side of the good guys* (though I did once read a very clever thesis that Adam is in fact not the Antichrist, but Christ himself). The idiots will complain, but then they always do.

*As distinct from Heaven.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I always saw Aziraphale as Nigel Havers and Crowley as Tony Slattery, which is probably a reflection of the era I first read them in.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I could go for Nigel Havers as Aziraphale, but I afraid that my visceral loathing for Tony Slattery, whilst probably appropriate for a demon, is very much DOEZ NOT WANT!