Heather Webber, Casting Director

Hosted by Donna MacMeans

Back in February, I was participating in a book signing in Cincinnati and discovered the lovely Heather Webber sitting beside me. Heather grew up in a suburb of Boston, where she learned early on how to ride the T, skip rocks in the ocean, and root for the Red Sox. As a young mother, she tried her hand at writing novels and hasn’t looked back. These days she lives in southwestern Ohio with her high school sweetheart and their three children. She is currently hard at work on her next novel.
Join me in welcoming Heather to the lair.

I think every author at some point is asked who they would like to see playing their characters in a movie. This question is so popular that there’s even a website dedicated to it. http://www.storycasting.com/browseauthors.aspx

Yet, for nine books I’ve avoided this question, passed it off, or pleaded the fifth. Not so much because I didn’t have actors in mind, but because as a reader I always like to form my own vision of a character and didn’t want to ruin that experience for others out there who like to do the same. There’s no one more perfect than the characters I create in my own mind. I can see the exact color blue of an eye, the slight wave to their hair, the smooth, sculpted muscles of a stomach… And no matter how much an actor may come close to what I envision, in my mind, no one compares.

The question of who I’d cast, however, persists. And I’ve come to realize that readers are just curious. No matter what I say, they’ll still have that perfect vision they created in their mind. So I’ve decided to play along this time, with my new series.

The black sheep of her matchmaking family, psychic Lucy Valentine uses her abilities to reunite long lost loves and solve cold cases for the state police. She’s tall, blond, brown-eyed. There are hundreds of actresses that fit that bill, but not so many that have that je ne sais quoi, that special something that makes a character come alive on a big screen (or a small screen—hey, I’m not picky). The actress needs to have the magic to express why Lucy would take in handicapped animals (a three-legged cat and one-eyed hamster), put up with her matchmaking grandmother, consider Twinkies a part of a balanced diet, and live with the knowledge that thanks to a family curse she can never find true love.

Then there’s sexy PI Sean Donahue who becomes Lucy’s business partner and falls hard for her. He has secrets of his own—big ones—and the actor playing him needs to convey more than dark hair, pearl gray eyes, and superhero jaw. This actor needs to express Sean’s inner pain—the knowledge that a physical ailment may cause his death at any moment, and that because of his illness his whole life has had to change. He has had to change.

Remember, no one can live up to the characters in my mind, but if I were to choose actors to play Lucy and Sean, I’d pick:

Piper Perabo from USA’s Covert Affairs and Matt Bomer, from USA’s White Collar. They are closest I’ve seen to match the images in my mind. Now I just need someone to offer me a movie deal…

Do you cast characters in your mind as you read? Or choose to create your own images? One person posting a comment will win a copy of Deeply, Desperately. You can find more info at www.heatherwebber.com