by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have a lingering celebrity crush on Alexa Chung, so I’ve constructed the female romantic lead of the novel I’m developing who is something of a homage to her. But there’s a problem.
My female romantic lead has an Asian name, but doesn’t LOOK all that Asian, just like Alexa Chung. So, I could see hilarity ensuing as casting directors struggle to find someone who can “pass” for white but is actually Asian. Or, they could cast someone like Jennifer Lawrence or Phoebe Waller-Bridge who would fit the novel’s description of the character, but not be Asian.
At this point, I have to note that the idea that I even sell this novel to a publisher is rather fantastical, so I’m doing little more than mentally masturbating to even broach these things. But I have to psyche myself up to finish the marathon of developing and writing a novel somehow, so this is one of the ways I do it.
Me talking about if Jennifer Lawrence or Phoebe Waller-Bridge was going to play the female romantic lead of a movie adaptation of the novel I’m working on right now is like wondering if I could score a supermodel after having won the lottery.
Anyway, it’s this type of quirk that makes the whole only-a-certain-type-of-person-can-play-a-role seem a bit ludicrous, even though it is, at least in my eyes, totally legitimate.
I am growing closer to getting back to actually writing on this novel, which is pretty cool. But I still have a huge amount of work to do.
