Secret of the Songshell: Celeb Comps

One of the joys of reading is using your imagination to "see" the various characters and settings in your head. Once I finally got into reading the Harry Potter books, I deliberately avoided watching the movies until I was done because I wanted to picture everything for myself before I saw the filmmakers' interpretations (granted, I was aware of what the main stars - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint - looked like, because it was pretty hard to avoid them during the series' heyday).

So if you haven't read Secret of the Songshell yet, or if you have read it and you don't want your mental images of the main characters to be compromised, stop reading this blog entry now! Because after the jump, I'll reveal some pictures of what I think Joel, Felicity and Marshall could look like...


Joel Suzuki - Ryan Potter

I watch a lot of Nickelodeon with my kids, and one of my - um, I mean, our - favorite series is Supah Ninjas. It started airing just as I was completing the first draft of SotS, and I thought: hey, that guy would make a good Joel.

Felicity Smith - Chloe Moretz

I actually didn't have a concrete image of Felicity for quite some time, even after the book came out. I was sort of thinking Taylor Swift, but she's a bit on the tall side. Then a few months ago, one of my friends suggested Chloe Moretz, and I was like, perfect! Apparently, Hollywood is following my every move, because I discovered last week that Chloe was being considered for the lead role in the upcoming new Star Wars movie.

Marshall Byle - Russell Brand

Okay, I know that this is a pretty obvious choice for a British rock star (yes, I've seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek), but Marshall was the one character for whom I had a pretty definite image in my head the entire time I was writing SotS. Russell Brand just captured all of the elements that I wanted Marshall to have.

Greenseed - Poison Ivy

Well, not quite like this, but you get the idea.