My muse for Walter...

I debated with myself on whether or not I am posting stuff about "Bright" prematurely. But I have no intention of changing anything about "Bright". The story is there, in my head, in my notebooks. All it needs is to be typed out, formatted, bound and published :)

Picking a muse for "Walter Yarbro" of this in-progress book was much more difficult than picking a muse for any other character I've written. I wanted someone who could easily physically pass for "bigender" or "genderfluid", as Walter is a character who is very complex in his gender identity. Before I go any farther, I will insert this disclaimer...I'm still learning exactly how gender identity works. It varies from person to person, and I make no assumption that all people who are "genderfluid" are like Walter.

I had already picked Ewan McGregor as my use for Walter's boyfriend and later husband, "Monty". I'll post about Monty later on. In the meantime, finding someone suitable to muse "Walter" was proving much more of a challenge. On a visit to Oregon, my friends introduced me to a TV show that had lasted only one season before cancellation. This show was called $#*! My Dad Says, and of course is based on the infamous twitter feed by Justin Halpern, which I knew about. I hadn't known they made a show about it. Anyway, I watched several episodes on DVDs my friends made from their DVR, and almost immediately, I took an interest in the actor who played the younger son of William Shatner's character. There was something about this kid. I can't even explain it now. All I can say is, he's "Walter." His name is Jonathan Sadowski, and though he's an American from Chicago, his surname is Polish/Belarussian in origin. Though he's got an "everyday American guy" kind of attractiveness, you can see his Eastern European ancestry. He reminds me of several foreign exchange students my friends and I crushed on in high school :)

Still, I wasn't quite sure. It was hard to see Sadowski in Walter's shoes because of the role he was playing in this sitcom, and due to the fact that I was unfamiliar with any of his other work. But I kept him at the top of the nonexistent list I had made of "Walter muses."

I did my homework...watched SHE'S THE MAN, a cute Shakespearean farce about a girl posing as a boy at school. Sadowski played Paul, the "gay best friend" and hairdresser of Viola, the main character. Seeing Sadowski with blonde highlights in his hair and daintily eating a french fry one tiny bite at a time certainly did wonders for my ability to see him as "gay" and "bigender", but it wasn't until I saw his work on an episode of the short-lived and otherwise forgettable series LAX that I became convinced. "Yeah, that's Walter." In LAX, he played a 20 year old from Uzbekistan who had run away from home after being beaten by his father---simply for being gay. Sadowski's hair was dark, no blonde highlights. And he wasn't wearing any flamboyant fashions. But his performance of this character was wonderful, the polar opposite of the comedic, hapless son on $#*! My Dad Says. And it then became very easy to see him as Walter...a character who is masculine and feminine at the same time...eyeliner, emo makeup/jewelry, hair blondish or dyed pitch black, sensitive, insecure, headstrong.

Here is a Youtube of the LAX episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1wW5...

I know I always speak of, "Physical muses" but the personalites that come through on certain acting roles inspire me to further shape a character. If Chris Evans wasn't such a human being as well as the stunner he is, he wouldn't have been the muse for "Tammy." Pretty boys with no personality never fare well in my scorebook.

There is so much I could say about "Walter". I don't even know where to begin. Walter is a person who has had a very complicated life, not just a complicated gender identity. He is physically disabled, which only adds to the challenge. Top all of that with the challenges that Monty brings to the table. Once I decided Sadowski was the "guy for the job", it has been a million times easier writing "Bright", and a joy to picture him and Ewan as the faces that go with the names.