Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits and Dini @ Dinipandareads! Every Friday they have a different topic for participants to write about and discuss, e.g. like this post.

This week’s theme is about casting in (movie?) adaptations of books:

Casting in book-to-film adaptations is always a big topic, and recently, the Wuthering Heights movie starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi has been the source of a lot of controversy. Other 2026 high-profile adaptations include Project Hail Mary, out March 20th, and the new Hunger Games movie, set to release in the fall, both for which the casting has been received more positively. What is most important to you with casting for book-to-film adaptations? Is the perfect hair color, or right height or eyes always a must, or is personality more important? When are book-accurate looks in casting most important? What are your favorite—and least favorite—book-to-film adaptations when it comes to casting?

I must admit I don’t have a lot of skin in the game (again) because I don’t really watch movies very often — nor TV, to be fair. I have surprisingly seen Knives Out and Glass Onion, because I got curious enough about the classic mystery type setups they had going on, but otherwise I’m hard pressed to name anything particularly recent that I’ve seen. I still name Pacific Rim as a recent-ish movie I’ve seen and, uh, well…

It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a visual imagination at all: I’m completely aphantasic, right on the “5” end of the apple test scale, so I don’t really imagine characters in the way described. Instead I get more of a sense of them: you know how birdwatchers get the “jizz” of a bird? Something like that, I think.

I do love the old BBC adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, so let’s turn to those for an idea of what I think about casting. The main players here are Ian Carmichael (in the black-and-white era) and Edward Petherbridge (in 1987) — I don’t know of any other adaptations, and I don’t know if I want to, because between them Carmichael and Petherbridge set a pretty high bar. Neither of them is quite the right physical type, but they each manage to capture different aspects of Peter’s manner perfectly. I can see Peter right away when I look at Petherbridge, but for Carmichael it takes seeing him in motion and hearing his voice.

The same is pretty much true of the way they speak, to be fair, but reversed: Carmichael needs only speak and immediately he sounds like Peter, while for Petherbridge it’s more the combination… But really, both of them are wonderful Lord Peters, and I delight in their performances.

Ian Carmichael also voices Lord Peter in the BBC radio adaptations, and they’re really good. The BBC often hits it out of the park on radio adaptations, or they did a few decades ago: The Lord of the Rings had a glorious adaptation, and even Andy Serkis (who did a great job as Gollum) can’t quite dislodge my conviction that the radio adaptation’s Gollum is the Gollum. On the other hand, the radio adaptation voice of Aragorn strikes me as wrong every time, though I do get into it as the adaptation rolls along. When it comes to the movie, by contrast, Viggo Mortensen was instantly Aragorn to me: manner, voice, clothes, the way he held himself… Perfect.

(That said, I was disappointed by the movie version of Faramir and never really reconciled with that portrayal, particularly with the changes made to the character for the sake of screen adaptation. Something too “soft” about him, and no, I can’t explain that statement any further.)

There are also times when I’m very sceptical of casting, like casting David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale in the Good Omens series, but makeup, costuming and pure skill from the actors make it fit like they were perfect all along. I’ve heard the same about the adaptation of Martha Wells’ Murderbot, where Alexander Skarsgård has been able to win over people who were deeply sceptical; I’m definitely curious what I’ll think when I get round to it, if I ever do.

(NB: I’m aware of the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Good Omens was also Terry Pratchett’s — some say the majority of it was Terry Pratchett’s — and I think the TV show was also so much more than Gaiman, though I acknowledge his heavy involvement. I’m not sure if I’ll watch the remainder or rewatch the first two series, and at the moment I don’t expect to. All the same, David Tennant’s Crowley was perfect to me, and I don’t want Gaiman’s misdeeds to take that achievement away from Tennant. Still, I think making this acknowledgement is important.)

All in all, I think I can forgive a lot of infidelity to details like hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, etc, as long as the actors can capture something fundamental about the character. Some can do both, like Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn or Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher, while some can carry the day with voice and mannerisms like Ian Carmichael as Peter Wimsey.

Sorry, though, David Wenham. You just aren’t Faramir. I’m sure you’re perfectly nice, but you’re not Faramir.