Relatable Characters? Not This Time

  I did a workshop at our local community college last week about drawing upon real life to write fiction.  It’s a great subject because isn’t that what we do?  Take our real-life details and put them into make-believe stories?

While I talked about this, I mentioned how characters should be relatable, meaning they have to have good qualities, but they need flaws as well.  Because, let’s face it, nobody in our real lives is perfect.  Nor would we want them to be. 

Just like characters in books and in movies need both good and bad qualities.  I touched upon the fact that even antiheroes have some redeeming qualities.  Otherwise, we simply couldn’t relate to them at all.  

Walter White in the hit television show Breaking Bad was a high school science teacher who discovered that he had terminal cancer and became a notorious meth dealer, eventually graduating to murder.  But... he did it to leave enough money to his family that they’d be in a good place after he died. 

Never mind that he put them in danger on several occasions. 

Tony Soprano, on another hit television series, The Sopranos, was a mafia don that routinely terrorized, extorted, stole, and killed in cold blood. But you could overlook all of that because he was a good family man.  If you overlooked the systemic infidelity. 

They were bad guys but had some redeeming qualities. 

Now comes Succession.  We have a whole cast of characters, none of whom seem to have any redeeming qualities at all.  None.  Zero.  

They’re money obsessed, class snobs, insulting, bullying, and extraordinarily narcissistic. I wouldn’t want to spend any time in real life with any of them.

And yet, the show has been wildly popular.  

Alert…I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon, May 28th, the same day that the finale will debut on Max, Formerly HBO Max.  Why did they delete HBO?  It’s an easily recognizable name.  Another topic for another day. 

In a nutshell, the show is all about who among the four Roy children will succeed their father in running his vast media empire.  Every single one of the children feels entitled and the entire series seems to be about who can be the most ruthless and cutthroat, just like their old man, Logan Roy.  

So, why is it so popular?  The pacing is incredibly brisk, the scenes are lavish, the music is elegantly beautiful, and the lengths at which the kids are willing to go can be jaw dropping.

And the dialogue.  It’s biting, witty, hip, crude, and hilarious---sometimes all at once.  It’s also incredibly fast.  Pay attention, because it comes at you so quickly that you’re liable to miss a bit of conversation that is priceless. 

So, I’ll be in my chair tonight at 9pm, ready to see how this all ends.  Relatable characters?  Not in this show.  But it’s been addictive as hell, and I’ll miss it when it’s over. 

Will I ever write a lead character that's completely unlikable?  Not on a bet. 

P.S.  I just finished watching the finale.  It was the perfect last episode in so many ways for imperfect characters. It wasn't a happy ending. 

Do you need to like a character?

Do you need to like a character in order to enjoy them?

It's a question that has occurred to me many times over the years, most recently in a conversation I had this morning with bestselling author and friend Denzil Meyrick.

He's a huge fan of The Sopranos and if there's something to know about that series he doesn't know then, frankly, it's not worth knowing. I had tried to watch the show when it first aired here in the UK but didn't get into it. I can't explain why it didn't resonate with me at that time. Anyway, Denzil urged me to give it a second try so I bought the DVD box set (yes, I am very retro) and began to watch. Soon I was hooked.

He is also a big fan of 'Succession'. That's one I have tried to watch, mainly because Brian Cox is in it, but it didn't gel with me.

How can I enjoy one series about people who are not very nice, doing some not very nice things in a not very nice way but not another?

Well, I'll tell you. I don't know.

Let's make something quite clear here - just because I favour one over the other does not mean that it is better. It does not mean that any part of the production - whether writing, performance, direction, scoring, set design, catering or best boying - is superior or inferior. It just means I prefer it. Simple as.

Both deal with power and the toxic effect thereof. But one is about criminals wishing to make more money and the other is about rich people wanting to make more money and I do tend to lean towards crime fiction. (Yeah, I know - shocker).

But here's the thing. With The Sopranos, however, there is a duality that I didn't pick up from Succession (although admittedly I only saw part of the first season). It may be there, it just didn't ping on my radar (hence the reason I only saw part of the first season).

Yes, many of the characters are unlikeable but in Tony Soprano there is often a little bit of humanity, of regret. It often doesn't last long. That he does monstrous things is an inescapable fact but there is a depth of character there, whether in the writing or James Gandolfini's performance, that suggests a lot more.

I told Denzil that I felt the character wanted out of the life but he put it better - he said Tony Soprano regretted ever being in it but is realistic enough to know that the die is cast.

The other characters are equally as complex, though some are outright monsters. They all have that little spark of humanity - whether love for a child, a parent, even Tony's early affection for the ducks in his pool and Christopher's yen to break into movies - that lift them from the run-of-the-mill.

Then they do something like shooting someone in the head.

Their morality is different from yours and mine, something they share I believe with the characters in Succession.

Character, whether in long form TV, movies or books, is everything. And as the success of both series shows, no, we don't need to like a character to be interested in them.

But if I am to stay with that character then I do have to have some interest in what happens to them, whether it is their ultimate redemption or punishment. 

If a character doesn't come of the page or step from the screen and take root in my head then I am not committed to the piece. They don't need to be likeable but I do have to care and I think that is why I have stuck with the boys and girls in New Jersey and not the rich kids of a media mogul. 

But perhaps I should give Succession another go.

Maybe my head was in the same space as it was when I first tried to watch The Sopranos.

And, as I said, Brian Cox is in it.

It's Christmas this weekend (how did that happen?) and I'm not due back until we have stared 2022 in the face and asked it what it's intentions are even though there's no way we can prevent it from crossing the threshold. So let me take this opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and that the new year fulfils any promises it makes on that doorstep.

Here's a wee card for you all.

My brush with stardom

I've long been a fan of actor Brian Cox, now even more recognisable than before thanks to playing Logan Roy on the TV show 'Succession'. Whenever he has appeared in a film, in the past more often than not as a villain, he has brought something to some underwritten roles that only a good actor can bring.

The fact that he happens to be Scottish is immaterial. This is not some flag-waving exercise.

My appreciation began before Hollywood beckoned, however, before he was that indefinable thing - a star. It began when I spent the night with him.

Perhaps I should explain...

Back in the mists of time, when you and I were young, Maggie, I wanted to be an actor. I was a gangling youth living in East Kilbride, just outside Glasgow, with visions of glitz, glamour and glorious technicolour. I took acting classes and elocution lessons that were intended to berate the Glasgow out of my voice (they didn't take). I attended youth courses at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and with the Citizen's Theatre company. I was in school shows and amateur dramas.

And then I got my big break - a part with my friend Stan Leech in a BBC TV series called Sutherland's Law.

We were to play drunken thieves who may - or may not - have killed a young woman while driving a stolen car.

This was it. The big time beckoned.

Sure, it was only a small part with a couple of scenes, but everyone starts somewhere, right?

The filming took Stan and I to Oban on the west coast of Scotland. The star was Ian Cuthbertson, a big deal on British TV back then, but we never met him, although I did hand him his jacket in the hotel foyer. 

One of our scenes was in broad daylight as we studied damage to the front of the car. It was a sheep we hit, said Stan (or rather his character). I'm not so cure, I said. You were too drunk to remember, said Stan.

We pulled it off in a few takes. Cut, move on, said the director. You were wonderful, said the assistant director, are you sure you have never been on camera before? 

We preened, even though deep down we knew he was only doing his job and giving us some positive reinforcement.

Our other scene was a night shoot, when we steal the car and drive off at speed. I had to be in the passenger seat for that bit, with a member of the crew being a stunt driver, swerving onto a country road at speed and weaving off into the night. That was an experience. But before we reached that we had to wait around while other things were shot.

And that's  how I met Brian Cox.

He was that week's guest star, if memory serves playing a police officer who was having an affair with the young woman. He, too, had some night scenes so he was with the rest of us in the minibus and seemed to take on the mantle of unofficial morale officer. It can get cold in the highlands at night and there is a lot of sitting around on a set unless you are one of the crew. Even the constant hot food and beverages failed to keep up the spirits so Mr Cox kept us all entertained with a constant flow of jokes and stories. 

Frankly, he was brilliant. Approachable, likeable and affable. 

He even signed my application to join Equity, the acting union. I think he may well have proposed me for membership, although it didn't do me much good as I didn't get in.

That was one of the things that finally ended any hopes of becoming the next James Bond.

I see Brian Cox has an autobiography out. I've not yet read it but I wonder if there's a passage where he met an aspiring actor in the wilds above Oban and signed his union application.

And does he wonder, whatever happened to whatsisname?