character reference: Shania

 Lately, I have been making more character-related icons and I've come across a problem: While it's easy to find actors who look a lot like my characters in some cases, there are a few tricky ones that make me wonder if there even are people in real life who look like my characters.

Take Shania. Tall black woman with an athletic built but with curves, not flat-chested but also not consisting mostly of boobs. A woman who is taller than some of the men she meets. Not unnaturally tall 12 feet tall but about 6. The warrior-type who can hold herself against just about anyone in hand to hand combat but doesn't look like a female athlete from East Germany, on steroids, more male than female. I have looked everywhere because it's not just about looks for me, I also want to think that the actress could potentially pull off the part. I have found a few candidates by now but none of them is the perfect Shania (though one comes really close).

 

The first person I think of when I think tall, athletic, kickass is of course Gina Torres.

I don't think I need to get into the details. Gina Torres is awesome, fair and simple, but I don't see her as Shania. She's Zoe to me and Shania and Zoe are too similar in too many aspects and it would feel too much like stealing if that makes any sense. Alan Tudyk who plays Wash, Gina Torres' / Zoe's husband on Firefly, is not like Hobbie and in the other big thing I've seen him, as Alpha in Dollhouse, he's not like Hobbie either and that makes it work for me. I think he could pull it off based on those two performances and that's it. Peter Krause (Dennis) is the same.

 

While watching The Matrix Trilogy, I spotted Nona Gaye who plays Gina Torres' sister and she looks like a strong woman, beautiful in her own way but while she is better than Gina Torres because she's not that similar to Shania in the part, there's still something off. I don't know how to describe it but I decided that she would probably do.

 

But there's something not right about her.

 

And today I came across an episode of Doctor Who that starred Sophie Okonedo and she kicked ass in that episode and was sexy and a real warrior and just ... wow. And I've seen her in so many things but when I saw her on that episode of Doctor Who, I didn't make the connection. So, right now I'm wondering and thinking about it a lot. Have I found Shania?

 

 

 

I will do this again. Next time, I will write about an even more frustrating character, Wes Janson.