Defy Not the Stars: Cast list
Defy Not the Stars features so many OCs I'm just going to drop a Dramatis Personae here so it'll be easier to keep track of who's who. (Look! A cast list! Like in a proper historical novel and stuff!) Some of the characters don't have more than a couple of lines, but like with movies and TV, I'm sticking to characters with speaking parts.
(Ethnicities and non-Muslim religions are listed to give the reader a better idea of the cultural varieties and tensions at the Baghdad court. Asterisks denote characters with historical precedents.)
-Jaffar, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Grand Vizier (Persian)*
-Yassamin, daughter of Mahmoud--Princess of Basra (Arab)
-Ahmad, son of Amin--The Caliph, puppet ruler of the Barmakids (Arab)
-Fadl, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Jaffar's older brother, Vizier (Persian)*
-Mohammad, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Jaffar's younger brother, Sultan of Samarkand (Persian)*
-Musa, son of Yahya the Barmakid--The youngest of Yahya's sons, heathen, rebel leader (Persian)*
-Ettabeh--Widow of Yahya, mother of Fadl, Jaffar and Mohammad (Persian)*
-Nasrin--Slave girl, later freedwoman (Byzantine)
-Masrur the Lucky--The Caliph's executioner, freedman, Jaffar's closest friend (Ethiopian. Also, this time, not a eunuch as he is in the Arabian Nights tales)*
-Tahir, son of Husayn--General of Mohammad's armies (Persian)*
-Khurshid--Jaffar's astrologer, Zoroastrian scholar (Persian)
-Karim--Eunuch, Yassamin's manservant in Basra (Ethiopian)
-Durra--Slave girl, Yassamin's lady-in-waiting in Baghdad (Persian)
-Khalil--Eunuch, page to both Yassamin and Jaffar (Circassian)
-Aziz--Eunuch, cheetah-keeper (Persian)
-Jibril Bukhtishu--Court physician (Syriac Christian)*
-Maryam Bukhtishu--Physician of the royal harem, mother of Jibril (Syriac Christian)
Oddly enough, I didn't really have clear fancasts in my head for the actors who should play the OCs. Would be interesting to hear which actors you readers imagined, really. It's a bit tricky because even in the movie, Masrur seems to be played by two different guys and stuff like that. And for Fadl, I had crazily varying ideas ranging from good old Anthony Ainley to Naveen Andrews with blue contact lenses, so honestly, imagine whoever you want, as long as he's not as thin as Connie and has a slightly broader jaw and a Beard of Evil. (ETA: In Of Roses Unfurling and elsewhere, Fadl is Basil Rathbone. This Fadl, however, is heavier, hairier and more muscular, generally more masculine-looking. Even if he's gayer than Baz!Fadl, this Fadl is the more butch one. This Fadl is about 90% gay, whereas Baz!Fadl is only occasionally bisexual in the typical "drowning in concubines, has a few pretty young boys on the side" fashion of the rich men of the time.)
Karim is always Morgan Freeman. Don't ask me why I imagined the Basran court had a Morgan Freeman as a surrogate father figure for ze Pwinzezz whom she loved way more than her real dad, but he was there even in Falcon and he is just a permanent fixture in my head. Probably because you always need a Morgan Freeman. Khurshid is Hay Petrie just as he is in the movie. I have no idea who I'd cast for Ettabeh, sadly--if you can throw in any suggestions of badass, tall, slim and delicate 60+ actresses with black/gray hair and piercing blue eyes who could play a rowdy yet elegant old lady, tell me. (I can only think of Susan Hampshire style-wise, but her eye and hair colour don't match!) And note that the ethnicities really were a mix at the time and the harems of Baghdad were full of women from all over the world, so not everyone looked stereotypically "Middle Eastern"--Jaffar's blue eyes wouldn't have been as unusual as you'd think. And the historical Abbasa was part black, part Persian, so my headcast for her is always The Freema. But I'll shut up now and let you enjoy the story--let me know if you get any good headcasts when reading it!
(Ethnicities and non-Muslim religions are listed to give the reader a better idea of the cultural varieties and tensions at the Baghdad court. Asterisks denote characters with historical precedents.)
-Jaffar, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Grand Vizier (Persian)*
-Yassamin, daughter of Mahmoud--Princess of Basra (Arab)
-Ahmad, son of Amin--The Caliph, puppet ruler of the Barmakids (Arab)
-Fadl, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Jaffar's older brother, Vizier (Persian)*
-Mohammad, son of Yahya the Barmakid--Jaffar's younger brother, Sultan of Samarkand (Persian)*
-Musa, son of Yahya the Barmakid--The youngest of Yahya's sons, heathen, rebel leader (Persian)*
-Ettabeh--Widow of Yahya, mother of Fadl, Jaffar and Mohammad (Persian)*
-Nasrin--Slave girl, later freedwoman (Byzantine)
-Masrur the Lucky--The Caliph's executioner, freedman, Jaffar's closest friend (Ethiopian. Also, this time, not a eunuch as he is in the Arabian Nights tales)*
-Tahir, son of Husayn--General of Mohammad's armies (Persian)*
-Khurshid--Jaffar's astrologer, Zoroastrian scholar (Persian)
-Karim--Eunuch, Yassamin's manservant in Basra (Ethiopian)
-Durra--Slave girl, Yassamin's lady-in-waiting in Baghdad (Persian)
-Khalil--Eunuch, page to both Yassamin and Jaffar (Circassian)
-Aziz--Eunuch, cheetah-keeper (Persian)
-Jibril Bukhtishu--Court physician (Syriac Christian)*
-Maryam Bukhtishu--Physician of the royal harem, mother of Jibril (Syriac Christian)
Oddly enough, I didn't really have clear fancasts in my head for the actors who should play the OCs. Would be interesting to hear which actors you readers imagined, really. It's a bit tricky because even in the movie, Masrur seems to be played by two different guys and stuff like that. And for Fadl, I had crazily varying ideas ranging from good old Anthony Ainley to Naveen Andrews with blue contact lenses, so honestly, imagine whoever you want, as long as he's not as thin as Connie and has a slightly broader jaw and a Beard of Evil. (ETA: In Of Roses Unfurling and elsewhere, Fadl is Basil Rathbone. This Fadl, however, is heavier, hairier and more muscular, generally more masculine-looking. Even if he's gayer than Baz!Fadl, this Fadl is the more butch one. This Fadl is about 90% gay, whereas Baz!Fadl is only occasionally bisexual in the typical "drowning in concubines, has a few pretty young boys on the side" fashion of the rich men of the time.)
Karim is always Morgan Freeman. Don't ask me why I imagined the Basran court had a Morgan Freeman as a surrogate father figure for ze Pwinzezz whom she loved way more than her real dad, but he was there even in Falcon and he is just a permanent fixture in my head. Probably because you always need a Morgan Freeman. Khurshid is Hay Petrie just as he is in the movie. I have no idea who I'd cast for Ettabeh, sadly--if you can throw in any suggestions of badass, tall, slim and delicate 60+ actresses with black/gray hair and piercing blue eyes who could play a rowdy yet elegant old lady, tell me. (I can only think of Susan Hampshire style-wise, but her eye and hair colour don't match!) And note that the ethnicities really were a mix at the time and the harems of Baghdad were full of women from all over the world, so not everyone looked stereotypically "Middle Eastern"--Jaffar's blue eyes wouldn't have been as unusual as you'd think. And the historical Abbasa was part black, part Persian, so my headcast for her is always The Freema. But I'll shut up now and let you enjoy the story--let me know if you get any good headcasts when reading it!