House of Fingolfin

Well, we probably want more than two candidates for such an important role, lol. But alrighty, then.. what about Fingon? We only have your suggestion of Sam Claflin and mine of Gregory Fitoussi. Who else should we consider?
 
Fair enough!

edited to add: and he does look like he's brave and reckless enough to attempt a sole rescue mission with a blade, a bow, and a harp. So that's a point in his favor.
 
I've been thinking about family resemblance on TV a bit. In general, they tend to assume that the viewer will just accept that characters are related even if they don't look anything like one another. Probably in part because if the characters look too similar, the viewer might get them mixed up.

So, these guys are meant to be brothers:

4df158f2ea3910c0ca03516c348b66a1.jpg
tumblr_n5bgo1weM91sug82vo1_500.gif
05059c8aaab6d970064abb464a429eda.jpg


Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery as Murphy and Connor MacManus (fraternal twin brothers) in Boondock Saints. Note that they are always dressed very similarly and often have the same mannerisms/ choreographed reactions to sell the family connection. They don't look all that alike, but they're not markedly different, either - similar heights, same complexion, one has darker hair.

Meanwhile, TV turned around and cast Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, making these guys brothers:
1ddaaab9fa3f65bbf39a96d0623ab2c8.jpg

Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker as Daryl and Merle Dixon on The Walking Dead.
There's...less physical resemblance here.


And from Bones, we have Seeley and Jared Booth, played by David Borneaz and Brendan Fehr
323105-seeley-et-jared-booth-dans-bones-990x0-1.jpg

Interestingly enough, when that show wanted to give Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) a sister, they chose Zooey Deschanel for the role - her real-life sister. However, when they wanted to cast this actress' father, they went with...

d67bb4f26b2a5099f2261326badebf5c.jpg

Yep, that's Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top as the father of Michaela Conlin. Apparently, you're supposed to think, 'just go with it.' [No, really, in real life her father is Irish-American, so it's not completely far-fetched. But still.]

Anyway, back to brothers....
Dean-and-Sam-dean-winchester-1683447-604-402.jpg

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki as Dean and Sam Winchester on Supernatural. We'll need to do an older-brother-shorter-than-younger-brother for Fingon and Turgon, so that seems to have worked out here. Interestingly enough, the 'short' one here is 6'2". I would say these two don't look all that alike. I mean, they're both Hollywood-pretty, but beyond that......

Speaking of, here's their mom and dad:
efc04bffbe4fd9be68c335832f15e81a.jpg


Not exactly a strong father-son resemblance there!

Though not nearly as egregious as this:
MV5BMjE3NzE0NDI0Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDc1MTk5OA@@._V1_.jpg
whitecollar.jpg

Treat Williams as Matt Bomer's father on White Collar. I don't see it.


My point in all of this is that while we might not want to pick people who are *radically* different in appearance, no strong family resemblance is needed to sell on audience on characters being family.

However, it can help to remind people of who is related and who is not....so there's no harm in planning out the families meticulously.
 
Last edited:
I suppose it's only fair to establish what my standard of 'family resemblance' is. Here's a photo of my grandfather, my father, my 2 brothers, and my 2 nephews. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but my brothers and my nephews all have blue eyes.

4 generations.jpg

The other photo is me and my siblings at my sister's wedding (some years ago *cough*). People can always tell we're brothers and sisters by looking at us. There have been some embarrassing mishaps where people have mixed up my sisters and I.

Wedding - siblings.jpg
 
We've discussed this once before. My view is that we should consider two principles: first, that actors playing siblings should have at least some definable resemblance, and second, viewers should be able to tell them apart fairly easily.
We want actors with individuality but not to the price of making it hard to believe they're relatives.
 
We've discussed this once before. My view is that we should consider two principles: first, that actors playing siblings should have at least some definable resemblance, and second, viewers should be able to tell them apart fairly easily.
We want actors with individuality but not to the price of making it hard to believe they're relatives.
Well said.
Perhaps picks for Fingon and Turgon should have darker hair or at least brown, since Noldor are known for dark hair. My heart is set on Charlotte Riley as Aredhel and she has very dark hair.
 
Well hair colour is actually the smallest problem since we can change that fairly easily.
 
Trying to come up with actors who could convincingly look related is a bit tricky, but I think that perhaps Chris Evans could be passed off as a descendant of Hiddleston's Fingolfin. So perhaps Fingon? Or (depending on where we go with the geneology) Gil-galad. (Hard to find a non-Captain America photo of him without a beard.)

Chris-Evans-Captain-America-GIFs.jpg
 
Trying to come up with actors who could convincingly look related is a bit tricky, but I think that perhaps Chris Evans could be passed off as a descendant of Hiddleston's Fingolfin. So perhaps Fingon? Or (depending on where we go with the geneology) Gil-galad. (Hard to find a non-Captain America photo of him without a beard.)

Chris-Evans-Captain-America-GIFs.jpg

I could see him as Gil-galad. I would say we wouldn't want him to play any character who's going to have screen time with Fingolfin, considering...
 
Back
Top