Sunday, May 10, 2015

Ten Favorite Screen Characters Tag

Hamlette tagged me for this on her blog.  The tag is to list 10 of your favorite fictional movie or television series characters.  Of course, that was so open-ended, I had way more than ten favorite characters.  So, I started categorizing those favorites, and... it got out of control.  I love way too many characters!  And with Hobbit/Lord of the Rings still on my mind, the lists were kind of... boring and familiar.

Instead of current favorites or all-time favorites, I'm selecting the most reasonable of my various sub-categories, because it had exactly ten people in it.  Convenient!

So, these are my ten favorite screen characters who have also influenced me and/or changed my life, in both big and small ways. Sometimes a character simply teaches me more about myself.  But yes, I'm one of those fool people who can be affected quite strongly by fiction.  There is power in words.  It's one of the many reasons I became a writer.


1. Kronos (Valentine Pelka, guest star on several episodes of Highlander, the TV series, 1997)

2. Borodin (Sam Neill in The Hunt For Red October, 1990)

3. Messala (Stephen Boyd, Ben-Hur, 1959)

4. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)

5. James Bond (Sean Connery)

6. Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow, Combat! TV series 1962-1967))

7. Tonto (Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger, 2013)

8. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor, The Phantom Menace, 1999)

9.  Ken Hutchinson (David Soul, Starsky & Hutch TV series, 1975-1979)

10.   Agent John Garrett (Bill Paxton, Agents of SHIELD TV series, 2014)

Interestingly, most of the fictional women who influenced me were in operas (and books), not movies or television.  Although opera pre-dates movies and television for me, so perhaps that's no surprise.  Long before I was allowed to watch a James Bond movie, there was opera.  So, to balance this list out slightly, (and since my favorite visual version of this opera is actually a film from 1976), I'm adding on Floria Tosca.  Here was a woman who needed no rescuing, and she remains my all-time favorite, and most influential, woman character of all time.

Floria Tosca (Raina Kabaivanska) and Mario Cavaradossi (Placido Domingo)

7 comments:

Olivia said...

I need to post my answers to this!

Yes, Indiana Jones! He's just epic;)

Valentine Pelka! <3 his de Bracy:D

Hamlette (Rachel) said...

How cool is this? I've seen all except your #1 and your honorable mention.

Cowboy mentioned that all of my favorite characters are men. I was thinking of doing a companion post, all my favorite female characters, to balance things out. Hmm.

DKoren said...

And I've seen all of yours, except for Jeremy Brett (ten or fifteen minutes ages ago does not count!). :-D

Well, we can fix 1 and honorable mention some time! I collect Toscas like you collect Hamlets, and I think we have similar feelings about each, so we ought to watch a Tosca some time.

And yeah, one of my subcategories of the 10 favorite characters was favorite female characters. Cuz I have ten of those, but they just aren't as favorite as the guys. So yeah, let's do a favorite female list at some point!

DKoren said...

Loved reading your answers! (And I realized I never did tag anyone in this post or even mention it. Woops.) Yes, totally heart Valentine's de Bracy. love love love!

Hamlette (Rachel) said...

Yes, I actually was thinking while making this that, wow, I should do 5 guys and 5 girls, except there aren't any female characters I love NEARLY as much as these. Not even close. But a list of favorite female characters would be neat, so I'll have to think about it. I can think of 3 off the top of my head...

Jamie said...

Found you through Hamlette and the tag (because I tagged her. XD) Anyway, I just had to comment because MASALA. I have never met another fan of Ben-Hur's villain before so I'm REALLY excited! Ben-Hur is in my top ten favorite films of all time and I've had a crush on Masala for years. So, needless to say I'm excited to meet another fan! :D Nice list, too! :)


~Jamie

DKoren said...

I haven't met anyone who likes Messala either, so woo! Yeah, I've had a crush on Messala since the first time I saw Ben-Hur, when I was in single-digits. :-D