Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

Tedious Citadel Task #61

I actually hate the idea of being an actor. It’s one job that I would absolutely never want to have, no matter how much money I made or how famous I was. I dislike being the center of attention, so it’s kind of like my worst nightmare, having two hundred people on a film set watching me intently while I work.

That said, if I were going to play a role in my favorite television series or movie, I think it would be fun to be a regular on a television series, where you get to explore a character’s storyline over an extended period of time. I’d want to choose someone that’s completely different from me and would have a cool job where I would feel like a badass. I had it narrowed down to Neal Caffrey from White Collar (a show about a master criminal who ends up working for the FBI to help them solve crimes) and Michael Westen from Burn Notice (a spy who’s “burned” in the intelligence world, so he’s stuck in Miami trying to figure out what happened while he uses his skills to help people solve their problems).

The problem is that, while being a suave master criminal would be so much fun to play, I think Matt Bomer played Neal Caffrey almost perfectly in the original. I’m not sure I could do any better, so trying to play it differently would probably only mean playing it worse. So instead I’m going to choose Michael Westen because, while I like Jeffrey Donovan, he always struck me as a little rigid in the role. Then again, he strikes me as kind of rigid in all of his roles . So I would probably want to approach the character of burned-spy Michael Westen as a little lighter and more free-spirited. Instead of playing a straight-laced professional operative the entire time, I’d want to play him as someone who starts out that way, but then, as the seasons go on, he gets more comfortable with the idea of being home in Miami where he’s basically a superhero, and starts to lighten up and appreciate not being stuck in some terrible hole-in-the-wall on the other side of the world running a dangerous op. Rather than a character who’s always trying to get back to that life, it’d be fun to play him as a character who starts to be conflicted about whether he even wants to go back because his sense of duty and professionalism is conflicting with the fact that he could have a pretty nice life for himself as a brilliant security specialist, private investigator, etc.


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Prompt: You've been given the opportunity of a lifetime to be recast as a famous actor or actress from your favorite T.V. show or movie. What movie is it? What character is it? And how would you play that role any differently?