So, casting the film version of DANNY.

Ah, how many years have I spent on that one?

Some problems for starters.

I absolutely detest films about siblings where they don't look like each other. I've lost track of how often I've seen films with brothers and sisters who are built different, have different colouring, no resemblance of features. You can just about get away with this if the children involved look like their parents. But there are films a-plenty where no-one looks like anyone else.

So, I have to have resemblance, preferably strong resemblance. It's especially important in DANNY because much is made of their family resemblance in the book. Their 'twin-ness' depends on it. And Rab has to look like Danny too, but that's not such an issue because the similarity shouldn't immediately strike the viewer.

Ian's a piece of cake, visually - any runt will do.

After that we have an age problem. Danny is only 19 when the book starts. John isn't so difficult. At 28 any actor into his thirties could play him. But a young actor who has the 'weight' to play the complexities of Danny will be a very real problem.

Which brings me to the ultimate problem. Where do I get two actors who look alike (hair can be dyed, eye colour changed) with a believable age span who can do the intensity necessary to convey their relationship?

I've never had any problem with the idea of DANNY being set in the US. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why it does not have a strong "sense of place". The characters are not written in dialect (there is precisely one Cumbrian dialect word in the whole book) because I did not want this to be The Great Cumbrian novel.

I have a dislike for rurally set stories where the hills have a bigger role than the actors. I wanted nothing to distract from their story. I didn't want the reader to expect a tour of the Lakelands, and I did not want to feature lowering heaths. I wanted the story to take place in a very confined place that could be any place. I wanted the isolation to be so complete that they were very nearly specimen family 3324 living out their lives in a lab bottle.

So American is okay with me. I can live with red wooden barns as long as they don't suggest John and Martha from Smallville as the parents.

But intensity is still the problem. And the sex. Any film I made would have to be in the Intimacy and Romance mould. The sex doesn't happen behind closed doors in the book, so it sure as fuck isn't going under cover in the film.

BIG problem. Lots of actors won't even do nude scenes let alone graphic sex scenes. Body doubling is an easy solution but then I have to find a John body type and a Danny body type - which inevitably suggests a dyeing pubic and body hair problem - not to mention horse-sized dicks. Which then brings up the problem of 'are the big dicks real?'

I'd kind of have to face that one head-on, if you'll forgive the expression, and I'm not sure I want to be that predetermined in my artistic decisions (is this the first time big dicks have ever been an artistic decision?)

See how complicated this is?

So, in a perfect world, if I can get them to agree to having body doubles for explicit sex scenes, with or without 9" dicks, who are my dream cast?

Well, I only ever get as far as John. Without John there is no DANNY. He's the lynch pin, the centre of the DANNY universe. All others must follow him.

In Britain there's only one actor who can play him. David Morrissey. He's got John's physical presence (exceedingly important) and, perhaps more importantly, he's one of the very few actors who can do thuggish brute with ripped-open heart with moving believability. He has brooding fury and fragile mental state down pat. If you haven't seen him in Our Mutual Friend hire it and watch the living incarnation of John Jackson Moore tormented to death by wounded confusion mixed with slighted rage. He has the added bonus of being just handsome enough and no more, plus we ought to be able to find a Danny to match him.

After that we have to go to the States. There are two contenders there. But, hands down, the winner is Vince Vaughn. Again, one of the few actors that has the sheer physical brawn to play John, but who also has the smouldering violence, just enough good looks, the potential of a fragile mental state and, as a big plus, psychotic eyes and a very nicely shaped mouth.

Runner up is Liev Schreiber. He doesn't quite have the physical size, but can project tall and imposing. He is fabulous at delicate suffering (see John at his most vulnerable in The Manchurian Candidate - a masterwork of internal strife), has the added bonus of the requisite odd eyes, and appears to have naturally wavy brown hair.

As an added plus, he's less conventionally handsome than our other two actors so can convey John's 'is he ugly or gorgeous?' quality better. I've never seen him play an angry role but I'm sure he has it in him.

And for Danny, the man himself?

Nothing, a big blank.

Johnny Depp could have played him, but he's too old now. There are other actors that just about have the requisite beauty, but they're either too pouty and pretty or, more importantly, can't convey the necessary corruption. For me, Danny will be played by an unknown.

Perhaps it's something of the mystery of him that he has to be a face you've never seen before.

He will have to be constructed, artificially, meticulously, like the art work people are always accusing him of being.

Even in a movie the poor sod will end up being someone else's dream of him.

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