I need to think of actors to play the main characters in the book/play. (Harper, Prior, Louis, Joe, Roy, Belize) All are within the ages of 20-30 Harper is a pain killer addict, and has an imaginary friend. Prior is moral, stable, and gay. He's white, and should be able to look Sickly. Louis is not very moral (he leaves Prior when he has AIDS), very right, gay, and white. Self-righteous. Joe is in law, and is very right wing. He's also gay. Roy is white, closet gay, and a power-lawyer. Need to be egotistical. Belize is black, gay, and a former drag queen. Also very moral and stable.
take a look at who played the parts when the show opened on broadway, and maybe it will give you some ideas.
Are you going for any type of angle with your answers? What are you being graded on, the selections or the reasoning?
What also sucks is that we were given an assignment, only given class time, mind you, to create this playbill thing. One part was creating a summary for each act. Everyone else's plays were 100 pages, 2 acts. Mine was 280 pages, 5 acts. Needless to say, the space and time provided does not suffice. :\
Honestly? The ability to BS . So I guess that's reasoning. For anyone who hasn't read it, I recommend it. Unfortunately, we can't choose any actors from any of the productions ( guess that means the HBO series too).
I'd pick actors that have done mostly comedy and the talk about the justification with the juxtaposition of their backgrounds. Like Topher Grace and Wilmer Valderrama
What movie was Julia Roberts in with that neat-freak, abusive husband? She could do Harper pretty well.
When I saw Angels in America on broadway, Roy Cohn was played by F. Murray Abraham. He needs to be played by someone who can exhibit immense charisma and strength of character in a shakespearean sense. The key to Roy is that it was inconceivable to anyone--the other characters, the audience, himself--that he was gay. someone like Patrick Stewart could pull it off. As for Joe--I think it was Joe who was Roy's assistant, right? IIRC, he is very conflicted and has trouble defining himself--he want to be a straightlaced conservative republican but eventually realises he just doesn't fit in. [it was 15 years ago that i saw this, BTW, so my memory is a bit hazy] Someone like Mos Def might be interesting in that role; someone who portrays a lot of dignity, and who doesn't want to be a stereotype. By choosing Mos Def, he'd have a further internal conflict, that is, trying to be seen as both a gay republican and a black republican.
He wasn't really an assistant, more like a very close friend. Roy was his mentor. The idea of Mos Def playing Joe is very interesting, and IMO, would add another dimension to the story. However, I'm sure accuracy holds a heavy weight, and this is only a small part of the assignment. Mos Def for Belize?
I don't remember the other characters very well, but I think that Belize was very flamboyant (or at least learned how to repress his flamboyance, but it came out from time to time), and that Mos Def wouldn't pull it off very well. To go back to Roy, the key to his character is that he is very masculine, and always in control--and again, there is just no way in hell that he is gay. The prototypical Roy would be someone like John Wayne. I don't remember Louis at all, but I like Kevin Kline in anything, and it sounds like he'd be perfect: [video=youtube;dKgZ6vp3DBs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKgZ6vp3DBs[/video]
you have to bear with me--I don't watch TV so it is hard for me to recommend actors. The guy in Will and Grace who plays the lawyer would probably be an OK Joe--it is essentially the same character, from what I understand. but if you have to stay within the age limits you mentioned for the actors, I can't really help you very much.
