Great Characters for the Win!

Every great story begins with great characters. If there was one thing that Lucy Maud Montgomery was excellent at, it was the creation of her characters. They aren't one dimensional individuals that grew on a page and stayed there. Her characters are living, breathing individuals that reek of humanity with all its quirks, both good and bad. Anne of Green Gables LIVES for her fans and Anne is so real that we all want to be her best friend and we, too, are searching for "kindred spirits" in our modern lives. Josie Pye might be the "villain" in Anne's story, but she also can be found in every high school today. And somewhere in our past, is a wretched schoolteacher that pretty much fits the description of Mr. Phillips. Hopefully, we all have a Miss Stacey somewhere back there, too.

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Point is, LM Montgomery already did our job for us, in creating characters that leap off the page of "Emily of New Moon". The least we could do was attempt to find character references that somewhat fulfilled her beautiful vision. 

For Emily, we already were planning on our daughter, who shares a few traits with the main character: petite in form, long curly hair, large eyes with long lashes and a high forehead. As far as her coloring goes, I planned to darken her hair to black and change her eye color. 

But the real trick was finding people who fit the other characters, in particular, the main adults in Emily's world: Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy. Those are pivotal roles that required folks who could look the part, but also offer expressions and encompass the character's personality as they gave us poses. And...be people we like to hang out with, because that actually matters more than you'd think in the artistic process.

Personally, I feel like we hit the jackpot. 

We needed Aunt Elizabeth to be able to offer us a stern, very respectable and no-nonsense personality in her photos. But we also needed her to be likable to our audience, while being strict to Emily and holding firmly to her Victorian ideals (a challenging dual role to pull off, to be honest.) 

But we found an amazingly perfect fit in Rachel, our character reference for the part. 

Rachel is lovely, inside and out. And she was happily willing to dress up in stiff Victorian outfits and play a role that isn't always complementary. Rachel handled her dignified Aunt Elizabeth part with style.

For Aunt Laura, another equally important role, we needed someone who could glow compassion and kindness. We found Bridget, who exemplifies that attribute in real life, as well as for our character Laura.  And when I discovered that she was willing to dawn Victorian dress and take photos with us, I was delighted. But Bridget stepped on board in a bigger way. 
"Do you need anyone else for character references?" she asked.
Yes, we had our biggest challenge ahead: how do we find a Cousin Jimmy that fits the part? 
"Let me show you a photo of my brother..." she said. 
With admitted trepidation (Could it really be that easy to find our Jimmy Murray?), we looked at the photo of Bridget's brother.

Sometimes, things are just meant to be. Bridget's brother Kyle had the right look. We set up an audition time and then met him in person. When we introduced him to the character of Cousin Jimmy, he was interested and willing and the man can ACT for photos. 
The rest is history. Kyle IS Cousin Jimmy to me now, and I think he always will be.