Casting notes
So I thought this might interest you guys, some of my original notes and thoughts from way back when I was first doing the casting picspam. Enjoy the randomness XD
So here are the original notes I made in my iPod while I was still in the thinking stages of this:
President (Colin) - Harrison St. James
First Lady (Gina Torres?) - Amanda St. James
VP (Alan) - Sam Barnes
CoS (Gary) - Simon
SoD (JDM) - Whitman Keller
Detective (David) - Nathan
Girlfriend (Billie) - April Newcastle
Daughter (Lenora Crichlow) - Penny St. James
From that alone there are many obvious differences. I did cast Gina as Amanda, but ended up writing her out because I couldn't figure out what to do with her. Sam's last name was different, and Nathan and Simon's names were switched (and they didn't have last names, so I'm pretty sure I had them in mind as father and son, even back then). The one that makes me laugh the most is Whitman as Secretary of Defense XD Also, Jensen wasn't cast yet, and I think that's because I initially imagined Penny as being younger, like 16 or so (this is obvs before I cast Lenora), so Evan didn't exist until I aged Penny up.
As you can see, Harrison, Sam, and Nathan were always the President, Vice President, and Chief of Staff, but the roles of most of the other characters were different. As I mentioned, Whitman was initially Secretary of Defense. Simon was going to be a police detective, and April was an elementary school teacher, though they were together right from the beginning. I ended up changing things around, because everyone was rather scattered, and it didn't offer much chance for interaction between certain characters.
Whitman always had his thing for April, though, which is actually a bit creepier in my mind, given that he would've been in this huge position of power, which at this stage in my thinking I don't think he would've hesitated to use to his advantage, and with neither Simon or April actually working in the White House, it makes his obsession creepier, because he never really had much chance to interact with her, so his feelings were based on a handful of random meetings.
I changed the jobs of April, Simon, and Whitman to bring them closer together, to bring Whitman down to a more... working man level, and moved April and Simon to the White House to give them opportunities to not only interact with Whitman, but also with everybody else. Bringing everyone together into this little dysfunctional White House family helped to make all of the relationships better and gave me more to play with.
As you can see, at this point I didn't have Lily, Alex, or Emily cast. Lily and Alex didn't even exist yet, and I don't think Emily did either, at least not in the way she does now. She existed once I wrote Nathan and Simon's character descriptions, but I didn't cast her for months because I didn't know who could play her, but if you've read my notes on Em in the casting picspam, Lindsay, Jamie, and I all thought of Rachel, which I took as a sign.
For the longest time I didn't quite know what to do with Sam. He was there, being badass, but sort of "off camera" as it were, because I just... couldn't quite figure him out yet. And then Deb (momentmusical) and Lindsay started talking about Sam and April and having them have some sort of relationship beyond the normal working one, and at first I was hesitant to do it, but I started putting more interaction in between them and the idea of Sam being in love with April slowly came into being, which helped define his motivations and behavior as it was in the main arc (obviously Sam is defined by more than just that, but you know), although initially his discovery of his feelings for April was quite sudden; I eventually went back and changed it to make it more apparent that he's felt that way about her for years.
Okay, I could talk forever about this stuff, so I'll stop now XD But if you have any questions, I will answer pretty much anything XD
So here are the original notes I made in my iPod while I was still in the thinking stages of this:
President (Colin) - Harrison St. James
First Lady (Gina Torres?) - Amanda St. James
VP (Alan) - Sam Barnes
CoS (Gary) - Simon
SoD (JDM) - Whitman Keller
Detective (David) - Nathan
Girlfriend (Billie) - April Newcastle
Daughter (Lenora Crichlow) - Penny St. James
From that alone there are many obvious differences. I did cast Gina as Amanda, but ended up writing her out because I couldn't figure out what to do with her. Sam's last name was different, and Nathan and Simon's names were switched (and they didn't have last names, so I'm pretty sure I had them in mind as father and son, even back then). The one that makes me laugh the most is Whitman as Secretary of Defense XD Also, Jensen wasn't cast yet, and I think that's because I initially imagined Penny as being younger, like 16 or so (this is obvs before I cast Lenora), so Evan didn't exist until I aged Penny up.
As you can see, Harrison, Sam, and Nathan were always the President, Vice President, and Chief of Staff, but the roles of most of the other characters were different. As I mentioned, Whitman was initially Secretary of Defense. Simon was going to be a police detective, and April was an elementary school teacher, though they were together right from the beginning. I ended up changing things around, because everyone was rather scattered, and it didn't offer much chance for interaction between certain characters.
Whitman always had his thing for April, though, which is actually a bit creepier in my mind, given that he would've been in this huge position of power, which at this stage in my thinking I don't think he would've hesitated to use to his advantage, and with neither Simon or April actually working in the White House, it makes his obsession creepier, because he never really had much chance to interact with her, so his feelings were based on a handful of random meetings.
I changed the jobs of April, Simon, and Whitman to bring them closer together, to bring Whitman down to a more... working man level, and moved April and Simon to the White House to give them opportunities to not only interact with Whitman, but also with everybody else. Bringing everyone together into this little dysfunctional White House family helped to make all of the relationships better and gave me more to play with.
As you can see, at this point I didn't have Lily, Alex, or Emily cast. Lily and Alex didn't even exist yet, and I don't think Emily did either, at least not in the way she does now. She existed once I wrote Nathan and Simon's character descriptions, but I didn't cast her for months because I didn't know who could play her, but if you've read my notes on Em in the casting picspam, Lindsay, Jamie, and I all thought of Rachel, which I took as a sign.
For the longest time I didn't quite know what to do with Sam. He was there, being badass, but sort of "off camera" as it were, because I just... couldn't quite figure him out yet. And then Deb (momentmusical) and Lindsay started talking about Sam and April and having them have some sort of relationship beyond the normal working one, and at first I was hesitant to do it, but I started putting more interaction in between them and the idea of Sam being in love with April slowly came into being, which helped define his motivations and behavior as it was in the main arc (obviously Sam is defined by more than just that, but you know), although initially his discovery of his feelings for April was quite sudden; I eventually went back and changed it to make it more apparent that he's felt that way about her for years.
Okay, I could talk forever about this stuff, so I'll stop now XD But if you have any questions, I will answer pretty much anything XD