Why Stardust? Okay, in the first place--it's already in development.  And since we know that not everybody can cast a film as well as Peter Jackson and company, we decided to take on the duty ourselves.  Hey, we're giving, caring people, you know?  Anyway, bottom line is that it's a really wonderful story about magic and a quest for one heart's desire.  It's almost like Legend, except better.  Neil Gaiman wrote it, Charles Vess illustrated it--and dammit, fantasy just doesn't get any better.

 What's the scoop?  Tristran Thorn is a young man who lives in the village of Wall.  Once every nine years a large market is held, and those who live outside the village's namesake mingle with the village inhabitants to buy and sell various unique wares.  It seems that Tristran's father, Dunstan, had a slight tryst with a woman from the other side of the wall, which bore Tristran.  Other than one slightly pointed ear and the ability to know where things are geographically located beyond the wall, he seems like your average young man.  Unfortunately, he's a bit too average for the likes of Victoria Forester, whom Tristran is absolutely and madly in love with.  When Victoria sees a star far away beyond the wall, she offers him a kiss in exchange for Tristran bringing the star to her.  Did we mention the boy was madly in love?  Crazy, insane?  Insane, crazy?  Yes.  So he sets off beyond the wall to find his star and thus win the love of his life.

Directed by Frank Oz:  We tossed about a few names as to who would give the film the feel that it needed.  It needs to be fantastical and yet not completely out there.  It needs to be a fairytale and a love story, but not so saccharine that it makes your teeth hurt.  We thought about Gilliam, Reiner and Zemeckis, since they've done well by the genre before--but we finally went with a Brit--Mr. Oz.  He's one half of  the directorial team behind The Dark Crystal, for one thing.  For another thing, he has had plenty of other experience around fantasy characters--I mean, he's a Head Muppet Performer and Yoda, for crying out loud.  That's a resume.  We think he's the man for the job.

Christian Bale as Dunstan Thorn:  Part of the challenge of casting Dunstan is that he appears in the story both as a young and an older man, so we needed somebody we could age and de-age.  Dale, being around twenty-five, looks mature--so we could take him either direction at will.  And he wouldn't look goofy with sideburns and a bowler hat--so we cast him.

Kate Beckinsale as Daisy Hempstock:  Daisy does not have an exceptionally large part, but she is there for Dunstan to gabberflast after he gets enthralled by the exotic woman from beyond the wall.  She's also there to be mother to Tristran, so she does have an important part.  Again, we needed somebody who could be both the young Daisy and the motherly Daisy, so after a couple of other thoughts we went with Beckinsale.  After Cold Comfort Farm we know she can pull off just the right amount of irritatingness.

Gabriel Byrne as The Gentleman in the Top Hat:  Again, not a large part, but still a crucial one.  It is through him that Dunstan runs into the aforementioned exotic woman.  Our minds were a blank until one particular Vess illustration made us think of the woefully underused Byrne.  Nobody plays weird and well-dressed like our man Gabriel.

Billy Barty as The Little Hairy Man:   The first name that sprang to mind was Warwick Davis, but our primary concern was his voice.  He doesn't necessarily have a hairy voice as is described in the book.  We then thought, well, hell we can just shrink somebody with CGI.  But nah, that's no fun.  So we enlisted the help of a seasoned actor--Mr. Barty, who knows where the magic is.

Kim Thomson as Lady Una:  Lady Una is the lovely and exotic woman that's been the talk of the previous paragraphs.  She's got a mysterious secret and also manages to seduce the poor hapless Dunstan.  Well, when we started thinking seductive and exotic (let's say that word one more in this DC, eh?  Exotic.  There.) Catherine Zeta-Jones instantly came to mind.  But somehow she wasn't right.  Then after some searching we ran into Thomson, who has some headshots of her that will make your damn heart stop.  All she needs is the ears and the silver chain.

John Rhys-Davies as Mr. Bromios:  Again, a kind of background/cameo role.  He's the gentleman who showed up one market-time and decided to hang around, become an innkeeper.  Although he doesn't fit exactly the stature that Vess had prescribed, we think that one of our favorite character actors will make the part his.

Jean Marsh as Madame Semele:  For this role, we needed someone who could be not necessarily evil, but just not very nice either.  Also we needed somebody who we could make really ugly.  I mean several kilometers of bad road.  After Lynn Redgrave's transformation for Gods and Monsters, we almost cast her--but then we remembered Willow.  Granted, Marsh played a witch in that one--but she's got a nice range and wouldn't mind being haggified for the part, wethinks.

Chris Klein as Tristran Thorn:  Here's where we're prepared to catch some hell.  Do you know how hard it is to find young talented British actors and actresses for casting?  We're not saying they're not out there--we might be looking in all the wrong places.  God knows we thought we watched enough PBS.  But we couldn't find anyone who matched what we considered to be Tristran.  First of all, he's a dopey, nice kid who is infatuated with a girl enough to risk his life on a quest for her.  And over the course of the story he matures, becomes more confident, and just generally grows as a person.  We scoured the Net for information on who could play him.  We looked up every actor who was around the age of twenty or so.  And finally we found Chris.  Now some might complain that we're giving him this on the heels of American Pie, but bear in mind here at SDI we didn't care for the film.  Some might complain that he's not a Brit, and we agonized over that fact.  Brits have been learning American accents for years and years--a good vocal coach could help him with that.  The only question in our minds is can he pull off the part?  We're thinking yes.  Granted, in his last two films (comedies) he played...well, a dopey nice kid, but his next one is a more dramatic role and we're hoping he'll prove us right.  And hell, if you grow his hair out he pretty much looks like Tristran.  Damn.  Okay, let the hate mail begin.

Natalie Portman as Victoria Forester:  God love Victoria.  She had no idea what she was getting Tristran into, nor do we think she cared.  She has to be severe enough to make you root for our heroine when it comes to Tristran's heart.  We think Natalie could use the break from being her own bodyguard--she could be cold and withdrawn.  And beautiful, to boot.

Michael Gough as The 81st Lord of Stormhold:  Go see the trailer for Sleepy Hollow.  He's the one in the chair.  No, he's not Batman's butler this time around.  Unshaven, long hair, rough,  looking every bit his age...case closed.

Derek Jacobi, Geoffrey Rush, & Alan Rickman as Primus, Tertius & Septimus:  Who better to scheme and plot about how to do their own family in?  Just take three of SDI's favorite actors and put them at each others' throats, smiling all the while.  And what's more, with actors of their caliber, those in the audience who had not read the book would never guess they would pop off like they do.

Kirsten Dunst as Yvaine:  Tristan's prize has to be played by someone who can swing from being very mature to a petulant child.  Also, Yvaine needs to have a slightly unworldly quality about her--for obvious reasons.  So we agonized over hundreds of names.  Most of the ones we would have wanted were too young for the part, like Mischa Barton.  And some just didn't fit right, like Sarah Polley.  Finally, we settled on Dunst.  She's a strong actress and though we cast her as Sleeping Beauty already, this is an entirely different kind of royalty for her to play.

Diana Rigg as The Witch-Queen:  This was a bit of casting that Cosette and Thespia suggested first, because they had seen her in a version of Snow White where she was not only evil, but played a host of different ages and disguises.  Now of course I and most know her primarily as Emma Peel, so I was skeptical at first.  Then I went and looked up her theatrical credits.  Wowzers, Bob!  There's not much she can't do apparently, I guess that's why she's Dame Diana Rigg.

Isabella Rossellini as The Voice of the Tree:  Neil describes her voice as having a different accent about it and sounding young.  Need we say any more?  We could listen to Isabella all day long.

Brian Blessed as Captain Alberic:  Another cameo, but this one needed to be cast, since I'm sure he'll have a few lines in the film version.  And although looking at Vess' illustration instantly made me think of John Neville for obvious reasons, but that would bring connotations to the fore that we didn't want.  Our second choice for looking great in captain's gear?  Yeah, you guessed it.