Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites & Likenesses
I am a visual person.
While there is art to interpretation and inference of the auteur-variety, I also feel an illustration or pictorial reference can (sometimes) help solidify the author’s vision, be it a novel, script, etc. With that being said, it is of my opinion that there isn’t a singular process of which readers “should” interpret a character’s looks, beyond the scope of bare-minimal, immutable descriptors (i.e. Charlie’s braces, hair color, etc.). For myself, there is a certain magic, if you will, about subjectivity and lens of which our imaginative mind concocts, deduces worlds solely based off a writer’s words. In short: I’m open that everyone will have their own experience of the characters I created.
To coincide with the new year and release of my first novel, Saturday Mornings Forever, I will list out my own ideas of who I imagined my characters to resemble, purely based on physical characteristics, like a composite of real-life avatars, or doppelgängers. Though some of the characters in the book (purposely) lack physical descriptions (i.e. Frances, Josh, etc.) in order to give the reader room for projection, I still imagined loose ideas of how they might’ve looked, some more pronounced than others. Therefore, as a thought exercise and for fun, I will be listing each and every important character, coupled with who I imagined their physical likeness to be, in alphabetical order:
Amy (Baldwin) - loosely imagined as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actress, Tatyana Ali.
Anthony (Bluesmith) - based off director and actor Rob Reiner, as how he appeared in All in the Family.
Charlie (Bluesmith) - loosely imagined as singer Imogen Heap, infused with (cartoonish) aspects of myself.
Dakota (Haney) - based off indigenous-American icon, Mary Thompson Fisher.
Eddy (Taylor) - imagined as rapper Master P.’s son, Romeo Williams.
Frances (Moorehouse) - no real frame of reference, vaguely imagined to resemble these characteristics.
Gill (Bridges) - loosely imagined to look like former heartthrob and actor, Chaske Spencer.
Heather (Peletier) - no real reference, though perhaps resembling Drew Barrymore from the photo.
Jay (Woods) - based off director and actor, John Cassavetes, albeit younger.
Laura (Carpenter) - loosely based off Romanian handball player, Sorina Tarca.
Lawrence (Carpenter) - a mixture and composite, between Michael Crichton and Robert Redford.
Lorie (Carpenter) - a mixture and composite, between Jackie Onassis and Elizabeth Hurley.
Meg (Derenberger) - based almost-completely off actress Sandy Dennis, fromThe Out-of-Towners.
Michael (D’Addario) - loosely imagined as Sopranos star, Jason Cerbone.
Olympia (Farrar) - pretty much based off Lizzy Kaplan in Mean Girls.
Pablo (Rodriguez) - loosely imagined as actor, Michael Peña.
Robb (Greenbaum) - loosely imagined as late-actor, River Phoenix.
Sheila (Bluesmith) - loosely imagined as famed Hollywood starlet, Florence Marley.
Tada (Okada) - loosely imagined to look similar to actor, Nakagawa Taishi.
Trudy (Gunderson) - no real reference, loosely imagined as Azerbaijani wrestler, Marina Stadnik.
Vivi (Mitchell) - no real reference, loosely imagined to look similar as unknown person in photo.
Please note, these photos are merely for conjecture and reference as fair use. All their respective rights reserved.
