I weep for that poor, small contingent of early Twilight fans who were REALLY into Gaspard Ulliel as Edward. Or the ones who had pictured Emily Browning as Bella. (Some folks were militant about it; they manip’d him in the peacoat for goodness’ sake!!!) I mean, can you imagine how completely different the Twilight Saga would be if they had been cast? WE WOULD HAVE NO ROBSTEN, YOU GUYS. We’d have Gaspily instead. Cast matters.
It’s why we spend at least one day out of the week on twitter dream- casting whatever book we’ve been reading lately. Oh, you want Garrett Hedlund for Finnick? TOO BAD, you got Sam Someone instead. Oh, you see William Mosely as Peeta? Sorry, have Lego Head.
In the best of cases, whoever is cast lives up to and exceeds the fans’ expectations. But there is still that awful time of limbo when the cast has been announced, but filming hasn’t begun, so fans have nothing to do but speculate and groan.
Such is the case right now with Veronica Roth’s Divergent.
What the Book is About
Divergent is a lot like The Hunger Games (and a ton of YA right now)- dystopian, future world, kind of like “this could happen.” The society is broken up into these four factions that are meant to complement one another, and each 17 year old gets tested to help them choose which faction they should go to. The main girl, Tris, gets a “Divergent” outcome (she doesn’t fit into any faction) – hence the title. TOTES LITERAL.
So, Tris leaves her family’s faction for the Dauntless (bravery is their core principle) faction and therein she meets the awesome Four, Dauntless prodigy and all around brooding hottie. The book has drama, intrigue, mind serum controlled fear landscapes (you have to read it to get it I guess) and ROMANCE.
Elise and I Chat About the Important Stuff
Elise: So this Four dude. How is he described …
Beth: Dark blue eyes, deep, rumbly voice. Smirky, tattoos, muscular, DARK hair, self-possessed, intimidating LIKE WHOA. I’ve assumed he’s fairly rugged, kind of unconventional, but definitely attractive and manly.
Elise: Oo this all sounds nice. Is there someone you have in mind, ideally?
Beth: I think in my mind, he looks like Ben Barnes. Someone mentioned Max Irons, and I like that casting. But he’s never really been in the running for the role.
Elise: Had to google to remember but oo yes! He seems like a good age too. I hate it when they case 30 year old to play 17 year olds. Did you know his full name is Maximilian Paul Diarmuid Irons?
Beth: Must be a family name. A family of witches.
Elise: Diarmuid? WHAT?
Beth: Guys being considered: Jeremy Irvine (no, ick), Lucas Till (nope, too baby faced), and yanno … the most recent rumor was the Alex Pettyfer was cast. CUE TWITTERSPLOSION.
Elise: I’m not gonna lie, it’s going to take a lot for me to be into him if it’s Alex.
Beth: At least Alex would look good shirtless. There’s a lot of shirtless Four.
Elise: He has a weird body. I only say this from Magic Mike.
Beth: Which I did not see.
Elise: Aaaaaa what!!!!
Beth: Seriously. Boycott.
Elise: Oh, sad. Well, take it from me, Alex ruins the whole movie.
Beth: He always does.
The Less Important Stuff
Elise: Can we talk about Tris? Is that pronounced Trizz like Grizz (and .com) or Tries?
Beth: Tris as in Beatrice.
Elise: *sigh* You mentioned she’s supposed to be rather ordinary looking. And I feel like that happens a lot in YA. Presumably to make the main female character more relatable, but it sort of annoys me. Like they have to go out of their way to be like “her nose was crooked but she was still useful.”
Beth: Yes, and here’s the problem with most of that: usually it’s the girl who is narrating, and how many girls are all “I’m totally smoking”?? NONE. But they give the guys they like a giant pass for everything.
Elise: Yes!!
Beth: Tris describes herself as having a long face, long thin nose, long neck (LONG MUCH) and long dirty blonde hair (more long).
Elise: hahaa
Beth: She’s really thin, kind of small, big blue eyes, etc. She gets tattoos when she gets to Dauntless (is that a spoiler?), bites her nails. That’s all I can remember. Tris has already been cast … have you ever even heard of Shailene Woodley?
Elise: hehe YEP. Before I rip on her, I should say that I enjoyed her in The Descendants.
Beth: I had never heard of her before she was cast as Tris. Granted, I should have kept up with awards season, but I didn’t see The Descendants so I didn’t care.
Elise: I remembered her for this.
Beth: OH NO.
Elise: Yea, she did.
Beth: That does not surprise me after the interview diving I did. Girls wants to be crunchy as the Cap’n. Direct quote about filming The Descendants, “It was one big Aloha – the giving and receiving of love all day long.” Um.
Elise: It says a lot that I, as a girl raised ON A FARM in the back woods of Oregon, who was a card carrying member of the CO-OP at age 5, whose mom smudged every new house we moved into, think she is TOO crunchy.
Beth: But it feels so … manufactured with her.
Elise: It’s aggressive. Her twitter makes me twitch. Why is she on such a mission to empower vaginas?
Beth: A public figure has no right having a feed full of chakra re-tweets.
Elise: “moon in Scorpio–definitely feeling the itch to have my own sacred space.” OR take more mushrooms, is what you mean.
Beth: LOL “Acting is just a hobbie. I’m gonna go to college and study psychology. Or interior design. Or herbology.” HERBOLOGY. Right.
Beth: I went on google with an open mind about her, but 30 seconds into the first interview I clicked on, she tells Josh Horowitz that she never wanted to do any big budget, franchise-type movies.
Elise: Oh please. Why do they do that?
Beth: Um. Girl , you are in a major movie trilogy YA franchise, you are freaking MARY JANE WATSON in the next Spiderman, and the big news is you are most likely playing Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars, which may be one of the best books written in the last five years, with one of the LARGEST FANBASES. You can’t keep saying acting is not your life.
Elise: If you want to make your art, just decline these offers. There are literally hundreds of other girls chomping at the bit for them.
Beth: Exactly. She is essentially nothing BUT up-and-coming. Say you are excited to be making awesome projects, not that you are doing them because you loved the message or what-have-you. Especially when you can’t articulate what the message is.
Elise: I just can’t even imagine the drugs she is doing on the reg.
Beth: I even suffered through 45 minutes of Secret Life of the American Teenager, to see if she was a decent actress. And to be honest, I think she CAN pull off badass and insecure Tris. (But I’ll never get that 45 minutes back). She’s gorgeous, and I’m sure she’s giving great auditions to get these roles, but she’s getting a major case of the Anne Hathaways – IN EVERYTHING.
Elise: Isn’t Kate Winslet signed on to this?
Beth: Yeah, no word on who she is playing yet, though I think it will be Tris’ mom. But it SHOULD be Jeanine Matthews, who’s kind of the main antagonist.
Things We Learned
- Divergent is a great book, and if you like YA, you should read it
- Four is a swoony mo-fo. He should be played by someone hot, and Alex Prettyfur will do …
we guess. - Shailene Woodley is a typical 21 year old actress: beautiful, talented, with questionable interview skills and gives bad twitter.
- Kate Winslet is in this movie, therefore I will cry (because she always makes me cry).
- Divergent has a sequel, Insurgent, that I can’t remember the plot of.
- There will be a third book, entitled either Detergent or Indulgent.
- Divergent fans make bad manips just like every other fandom does.
And you should totally read it.
So have you read Divergent and Insurgent? Who do you think would be best for Four? Are you anti-Alex too?
