Surviving
motherhood? It's all about having the right support network.
Lawyer and new mum Cassie
has a husband who converses mainly through jokes, a best friend on the other
side of the world, and a taskforce of Babycraft mothers who make her feel she
has about as much maternal aptitude as a jellyfish.
Husband Jonathan dismisses
Cassie’s maternal anxieties, but is he really paying attention to his
struggling wife? He’s started sleep talking and it seems there’s more on his
mind than he’s letting on. Then sexy, swaggering ex-boyfriend Malkie saunters
into Cassie’s life again.
Unlike Jonathan, he
‘gets’ her. He’d like to get her into bed again, too…
And on top of all her
emotional turmoil, she also finds herself advising a funeral director on ghost
protocol and becomes involved in an act of hotel spa fraud, never mind hiding
cans of wasp spray all over the house to deal with the stalker who seems to be
lurking everywhere she looks. Marriage and motherhood isn’t the fairytale
Cassie thought it would be. Will her strange new world fall apart around her or
will tiny acts of love be enough to get her through?
Funny, perceptive and
real, Tiny Acts of Love portrays the rawness of motherhood, the flipside
of love and the powerful lure of paths not taken.
Tiny Acts of Love Dream Cast
Tiny Acts of Love Dream Cast
Today I’ve been given the
exciting task of deciding on a dream cast for the principal characters in Tiny Acts of Love! So here goes:
Cassie
Cassie is a young lawyer, and the lead character in the novel. She’s just
had her first baby, and she’s trying to find out who she is, now that she’s a
mother, and a wife who’s a mother, and has stepped back with her career. She
frets a lot and has a tendency to catastrophise. But she also knows how to
laugh at herself, which is her saving grace.
I think Amy Adams would be perfect to play Cassie. Here she is:
My two little girls and I have been watching the DVD of Enchanted (purchased in desperation in the supermarket one rainy day at half
term!) It’s a modern day princess story set in Manhattan, affectionately poking
fun at Disney classics like Cinderella
and Snow White. Amy plays the lead and
she reminds me of Cassie, as she’s got that wide-eyed, innocent look going on, but
with wicked, tongue-in-cheek humour underneath. I also like her because she’s very
beautiful, but warm and real-looking, too.
Jonathan
Jonathan is Cassie’s husband,
and quite a complicated soul. When Janne from my publishers suggested Benedict
Cumberbatch to play him, I wasn’t sure to begin with because he didn’t fit my
idea of Jonathan physically. In my mind, Jonathan is sturdier and more heavily
set (though he also has dark hair and is tall). I was convinced, however, after
carefully studying the photos in this hilarious article which Janne found!
Photo number 3, in
particular, is very Jonathan! And in terms of character, it would be a perfect
match. Jonathan has a streak of arrogance, and will always think he’s the most
intelligent person in the room. But there’s vulnerability underneath that. He
doesn’t like to show his emotions (something which infuriates Cassie!) but
they’re definitely there, having an effect on his actions and reactions.
Benedict would be brilliant at bringing that out. With his understated, dead
pan humour, he would also be devastatingly good at delivering some of
Jonathan’s comic lines.
Malkie
Malkie is Cassie's long lost first love, who appears
out of the blue - working at her law firm - when she returns from maternity
leave. He’s a bit of a bad boy come (sort of) good, but with vulnerability
underneath all that, too. His charm is that he’s very intuitive – he ‘gets’ Cassie like no-one else does.
I
knew straight away who would play him! Imagine Ewan McGregor's Renton from Trainspotting,
ten or fifteen years on, all cleaned up, with a sharp suit and a good job. That
would be Malkie.
This
picture, in particular, is very Malkie!
Dita
Dita is Jonathan’s mum. She’s
a lovely character, emotionally available and very supportive of both Jonathan
and Cassie, as well as being a doting grandmother to baby Sophie. Sometimes she
can be a little too open, and always
seems to puts her foot in it with the ultra-competitive, right-on Babycraft
group.
I would cast Barbra Streisand
in this role!
I’m thinking, in particular,
of Barbra playing Roz, Ben Stiller’s embarrassingly open but endearing mum in Meet the Fockers.
I hope you enjoyed meeting my
dream cast for Tiny Acts of Love. It
was great fun choosing them!
About the Author:
Lucy Lawrie was born in
Edinburgh, and gained an honours degree in English Literature from Durham University
before going on to study law. She worked as a lawyer in Edinburgh for several
years, specialising in Employment and Pensions law. When Lucy was on maternity
leave with her first baby, she unearthed a primary two homework book in which she’d
stated, in very wobbly handwriting: ‘I want to be an
AUTHOR when I grow up.’ To appease her six-year old self, she began
writing her first novel.
Connect
with the author at:
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