Richard Armitage is my Rochester!

There seems to be a BBC miniseries of almost every good piece of literature ever written. Or at least, that's what I thought as I went searching for a screen adaption of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, the newest book I've found an interest in. Imagine my surprise then, when it turns out that there's no adaptation to be found! I was quite shocked, but at the same time I understand because Shirley isn't the most popular of novels.

However, the absence of a screen adaption of Shirley got me thinking. As we all know, I love to discuss the casting of characters in screen versions of Jane Eyre, and I always run into the dilemna that none of the cast seems perfectly right for ME. Therefore, for the next week I'm going to choose some of my favorite pieces of Lit and pick a cast that I would personally imagine. I mentally cast movies in my head all the time, and I think it would be pretty fun to share the ideas that have been running through my brain to see what you guys think. I plan to do this for (of course) Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Shirley, and maybe even others.

I planned on starting this new adventure out with Shirley, but I'm actually having a really hard time finding someone I think would be right as the titular character. Therefore, I'm going to start with Jane Eyre because I've had a mental cast in my head for this novel ever since I read it for the first time 3 years ago.

Jane Eyre 2011 Directed by Bonnie C.

Jane Eyre
Of course, we start with the titular character, Miss Jane Eyre herself. This role is probably the hardest to cast because you have to find a young girl who can pull off the plainess as well as the intensity of Jane. I always tried to stay in the range of eighteen to twenty two years old when thinking of who I would cast. It was extremely hard to find an actress to live up to my mental picture of Jane. I ended up realizing that for some reason, there were two different ways that I could possibly imagine her. So here are the two actresses I found that best suited those two ways.

The first actress that came to my mind was Anna Popplewell (aka Susan from Chronicles of Narnia)

Grant it, Anna may be too old. She's 22 and a little mature. However, she's only 5'3 which works in her favor as a Jane because it may be able to give her a younger look and who knows what hair and makeup can do to her? Anna sings to me as Jane because she isn't naturally pretty and she's also used to playing strong characters. For some reason I can see her playing a naturally independent, yet rather subtle Jane. However, I like my second choice better. And that choice is:

Rachel Hurd-Wood:

I had to give two pictures of Rachel for a particular reason. The first was to show her with Brown hair, just so the Janian quality might come out a bit more. The second was the picture that drew me to her as Jane. That picture has a straight-forward quality which made it easy for me to picture her with Jane's knot, AND to me it just wreaks of Jane's "pixie-like" quality. This girl has these large, searching eyes and her face has this youthful understated beauty that can be made to look appropriately plain. Rachel is also only twenty years old and has a pretty good load of acting experience. I rather liked her in Dorian Gray. The downside is that she has blue eyes and she's around 5'6, so she isn't necessarily "small." However, the Rochester I chose is 6'2, so she would probably look appropriately small next to him. Speaking of the man himself, let's move on to Rochester.

Rochester

There's only one man I've ever pictured as my perfect Rochester, and that is Richard Armitage.

I'm sorry, but how has this man NOT been casted as Rochester yet? Sure, he's really good looking, but so were numerous other Rochesters that filmakers successfully uglied up enough. Richard Armitage is 39 years old, 6'2, broad chested, athletically built, and naturally dark haired. Not only that but he has the "grim" thin-lipped mouth, as well as the piercing eyes and bad-boy ruggedness. Add a dark and menacing voice with a natural Northern English accent, and you have all the physical qualities of a great Rochester. However, he also has the internal qualities in abundance. Richard played an equally gloomy and rather sardonic Lit hero in BBC's adaptation of "North and South" and he played it AMAZINGLY. He knows how to emote anger, frustration, and all throughout the miniseries I kept thinking "why is this man NOT Rochester?". Of course, I've focused on Rochester's bad sides, but Richard is also equally capable of carrying out Rochester's passion the same way he did in North and South. Does it help any that he completely owned his role in that miniseries based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell who was one of the BEST friends of Charlotte Bronte and wrote similar stories? It's almost as if he was fated to play Rochester for me! Match him with Rachel who I imagined playing Jane, and together it's the perfect age gap.

St. John
It's such a shame that Jude Law is too old, because for some reason I always thought he was a great fit to St. John. St. John is by far the hardest character in the novel to cast. You'd think it'd be easy, but to me St. John isn't just your regular pretty boy. Sure, he's supposed to be handsome, but there's rigid and unattractiveness within him that Jane can't stand. You have to find an actor that can successfully portray that coldness.

I came up with Aaron Johnson.

He's a little young for the part, but he can pull it off. He's about to play Vronsky in Anna Karenina, so he's used to big shoes that need to be filled. This guy has a lot of talent and he molds characters very well. He's like a cameleon. Whatever type of character you want, he can be. So why can't he be St. John? He can deliver the coldness and the sexyness. And for once, we may find that St. John is suitable competition like he was in the novel.

Mrs. Fairfax
She's not all that hard of a person to cast. I liked a good deal of the previous Fairfaxes and I can't really find one that I didn't like. Dame Judi Dench nailed her performance and thus defined the role for me, but just for the sake of doing something different, why don't we try Brenda Blethyn?

To me, Brenda is right up there in the caliber of actresses that include Dame Judi. I haven't seen a movie where she hasn't played her role solidly and so why not give her a try as Fairfax? I don't think it's really possible for you to go wrong with Brenda any more than it is with Judi Dench.

Mrs. Reed
She's not TOO much of an important player, so I would cast her with a solid actress who can pull of the sweet and cruel. And no actress does that better than Tilda Swinton.

As she so aptly displayed in the Chronicles of Narnia, Tilda is rather good and playing evil characters with the outward appearance of a sweet woman. It seems like she would fit the role of Mrs. Reed rather well.

What do you guys think so far?