Guest Author - Elsa Neal

Deceased actor Heath Ledger was clearly putting too much of himself into his latest very intense roles (reinventing Jack Nicholson’s The Joker in The Dark Knight, playing a version of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There), and taking on too many gruelling projects one after another. Before the close of 2007, he’d completed both these films and jumped straight into another Terry Gilliam project – The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

But it’s easy to understand why a driven actor might feel he needs to grab these remarkable roles when they come along, despite the stress load, when it seems so few really great roles are written. Actors like Ledger choose to avoid easy money roles that often lead to typecasting, and instead look for characters who will stretch their acting ability to the max. That’s a great lead for writers to follow.

Interviews with actors on the DVD special feature sections and in newspapers and magazines are excellent sources of inspiration and story ideas. Hollywood is an interesting barometer of what is currently popular, but actors often look for characters that take them into different territory.

A few years ago I remember more than one actor complaining about the lack of decent roles for women over 40. My first thought hearing that was “Oh, that’s easy. I can write that.” I filed the kernel of an idea away for future use – but since then we’ve seen shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, which revived the careers of 30- and 40-something actors. And that only means there’s more room for stories about women of all ages (remember The Golden Girls?).

If you’re stuck for story ideas, there are a few angles you can try. Pick an actor you admire and read and listen to her interviews. Very often actors will talk about what they enjoyed about a role, why they took the role, what grabbed them about the story. Sometimes they get asked “What’s next?” As a writer, you can gauge a lot from the answer – if they have a new movie lined up, is it different to the movie they’ve just completed? If there’s no movie in the pipeline, they might hint about what sort of character they want to try next.

When you sit down to come up with characters and stories, you don’t necessarily need to write for a particular actor, unless you find it useful to do so (and screenwriting makes it much easier to see an actor in a role). Craft your characters based on qualities and personality traits you feel an actor would love to get their teeth into.

If the actor you’ve chosen doesn’t seem to have moved out of his comfort zone yet, write a break out role for him. Somebody in casting saw Heath Ledger as a gay cowboy – and that casting decision came together with an actor ready to take on a difficult role in the movie Brokeback Mountain.

Of course, this doesn’t mean your book will necessarily make it onto the screen, or that you will have a say in which actor is eventually cast in the role. But it helps to keep you going while you’re writing, knowing that there is a desire for the type of character you are creating.

---

Developing Story Ideas by Michael Rabiger focuses on coming up with great ideas for movie storylines.
One of Heath Ledger's best roles is in the movie Brokeback Mountain.