Casting Target Deck

One of the questions I get asked a lot is who I would cast to play the characters in my novels if they were to be made into movies.  I usually resist answering for two reasons.  First, I don’t offer a whole lot of physical description of my characters.  This is especially true of Deckard, my protagonist.  I like to let readers fill in the blanks for themselves.  Second, I don’t like Hollywood and wouldn’t want them messing around with my books to begin with.  To tell you the truth, I’d rather have my books made into video games that movies anyway.  I think games are where its at these days and the creative teams behind them are doing a better job at story telling in my opinion…but that’s another post.

Since people are so curious I will go ahead and try to cast a few characters in Target Deck.

Deckard isn’t like most action heroes.  He isn’t Captain of the football team material, isn’t “all-American” or any of those stereotypes.  His motivations are different and this sets him apart from the rest of the pack.  He understands the absurdity going on in the world and can approach it with a sense of humor.  He has a strong sense of justice, but is a smart ass and doesn’t have much faith in the system as it were.  I think anyone playing Deckard has to be more than the Channing Tatum Dallas Cowboys Quarterback stand in.  A lot more actually.  The actor playing him has to be able to not only play a tough guy but play a smart ass.  Two candidates that come to mind are Guy Pearce and Clive Owen.

Owen can play even the most absurd roles with a completely straight face and break people’s balls along the way.  You get the sense that there is a lot in life that he doesn’t take all that seriously.  Take the movie “Shoot ‘Em Up” for instance.  Guy Pearce is another great candidate because he comes off as being highly intelligence but with a sense of humor.  If you watched him in “Lock Out” you can see how well he plays the hero who is just winging it and flying by the seat of his pants the entire time despite the high stakes involved.  That’s Deckard material right there.  Pearce gets my endorsement for the lead role but I still like Owen as an actor.

Casting a lot of these characters from my book is difficult because they are mostly composite characters of people I actually know but I will try to continue.  Another character, really Deckard’s right hand man, is a former Delta operator named Pat.  Pat is the archetype Senior NCO that we would all want to serve with in the military.  He is also the guy who has to reign Deckard in when he gets out of control.  For the role of Pat, I see no reason to beat around the bush.  The guy who comes immediately to mind for this role is Dale Comstock.  Dale served for almost thirty years, ten of those years in Delta Force, in addition to 82nd Airborne and 3rd Special Forces Group.  He’s been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.

Kurt Jager is a character I borrowed from Rob, a buddy of mine as a way of thanking him by interjecting Kurt into the books I write.  Think of it as a little “insider baseball” for people who have been reading my stuff for a long time.  Kurt a former German GSG-9 Counter-Terrorist commando and judging by the feedback I get from readers, he is one of their favorite characters.  I reached out to ask Rob who he could envision as playing Kurt Jager:

Aghassi is Samruk International’s HUMINT (Human Intelligence) specialist.  With an Middle Eastern background, he can blend into foreign cultures.  Having served in Army Special Operations he was then picked up by the secretive Intelligence Support Activity.  I would go with Saïd Taghmaoui for this role.  He has played a number of different roles that call for an Arab, I think he could do a great job playing an Arab-American spy.

I was pretty stumped as to who would play the role of Samantha, the female police chief who inherits the job after her father is killed by a drug cartel.  It is not like there is any shortage of attractive Mexican women (also another post) but I think Tamara Feldman is a great candidate for the part of the gutsy Mexican police officer.  For those who think this character is just too impossible for fiction, you’re right.  She is based off of a real female police officer in Mexico.

Now what about Nikita, the rogue sniper from Kazakhstan who is barely under Deckard’s control half the time?  Who do you think could pull it off in a movie?

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