Do you have a dream celeb or audio veteran picked out to perform your WIP? What about past or future projects? Feel free to choose an entire cast, and absolutely disregard the likelihood of any of these people actually reading an audiobook, because who cares. Besides, publishers can hire anybody they want to read these days. Even Brad Pitt did one. (It was more of an audioplay than an audiobook, but whatever.)
My current project is written in first person with a female narrator in her thirties. I wouldn’t call her cool and collected, but she’s smart in a crisis, and never a damsel. The rest of the time, she’s playful, sensual, sophisticated and emotionally self-aware. Maggie Gyllenhaal. Boom. (If you’re into audiobooks at all, you should hear her reading of The Bell Jar. It’s the greatest performance I’ve heard so far. I haven’t listened to her Anna Karenina yet, but I can’t wait.) Steven Weber did a fantastic job on It. I want him for my next book, the sci-fi serial killer novel. I wrote a short story recently, also in first person, during which I could not get James Franco’s voice out of my head, so that would be Awesome. Another, which is in the workshop right now if anyone wants to help, is about cutesy children’s characters gone wrong. I want to turn it into a whole collection, and the audio version wouldn’t be perfect without a pair of cartoon voice over pros, like Hank Azaria and Terra Strong. Step 1: Finish the damn books. Step 2: Make unrealistic and outrageous demands regarding adaptations. Yep. I got this.
I think Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Keith, Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, Helen Mirren, and Stephen Fry. I might find a role for Emma Watson, but it will involve some teabags and pot. Anyway, if you could just settle them down, I'll open us a sparkling bottle of throat lubricant from Krug...
https://www.elloisethomson.com She's an English actress, but not an over-the-moon Pride and Prejudice type English actress. If you know what I mean. And she does children's voices better than anyone else I know. Since my WIP features three 12-year-old girls, well, the choice is an easy one. Besides which, I've already had her do a test read on two chapters and I was fairly blown away!
I was in a cool anthology once that always had audiobooks done of it but of course that year they skipped it. (Checks Amazon. Yep . . . still.) I have no idea why. My paranoia whispers to me. I've got a story coming up through Pseudopod. (Soon, maybe. I'm waiting for them to lay down a schedule.) I think they buy far in advance. Their audiobooks are nicely done. I have no say in what they do, which is probably for the best. haha.
I don't have a story for it, but I want John C. Reilly and Barrack Obama to read one together. I'm thinking two guys trapped in a cabin for the winter after a major heist, a cross between The Odd Couple, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and maybe The Shining.
Yes, and he does the same with the genuinely perverse. Jeremy Irons's reading of Lolita is infinitely creepier than his portrayal in the movie, and at the same time, I can't imagine anyone doing a better job with Nabokov's poetry in prose clothing. It was an experience. This is what I don't understand. How can anyone have a blanket aversion to audiobooks. I can understand preferring text, but would you rather read The Old Man and the Sea or have Donald Sutherland read it to you? (I've read the book and heard the audio version both. The answer is Donald Sutherland.) They're not always better, but some are amazing!
