Inkheart Author Based Book's Character on Actor

Turns out it's a good thing actor Brendan Fraser did not have other plans when he was chosen to be the model for a character created by a German writer then virtually unknown in America.

The character is Mo, the story is "Inkheart," and when now best-selling author Cornelia Funke was approached about adapting her novel into the now just-released movie, she told the director and studio it's not merely that Frazier would make the best Mo -- he is Mo! And so it came to be.

Now Funke (say FOON-kuh) finds herself with a producer credit, doing readings in New York with Fraser, living in Los Angeles, and --on Inkheart the film's opening weekend -- sharing Hollywood inside (and writing insights) with a roomful of adoring fans who want to know all about Mo.

"I based the character on Brendan Fraser," volunteered Funke, explaining that real persons, often performers, inform her fantasy characters.

"I'm a magpie, you know. I steal from actors," Funke said with a chuckle to the standing room only throng Saturday at the Burbank Public Library.

Inkheart being her first book adapted by Hollywood, and well aware that fellow novelists are notorious for their casting dictates, Funke was gratified that director (Iain Softley) and New Line Cinema welcomed her suggestion, and that Fraser was able to accept the role.

Now, regarding that reading in New York: Funke allowed as how the women in attendance found Fraser "just as cute in person."

Funke was ready when the audience wanted to know how she feels about the rather significant differences between her novel and the film. She acknowledged that her website has been getting outraged e-mails.

"I say, 'hello! The movie is two hours long and to read this book aloud takes 18 hours. How could it be the same?"

Funke said she not only accepts the difference, she embraces it.

"If I give the book to a theater company I want it to change. I feel honored to have a brilliant cast and a wonderful director. I am very happy. And it is very different from the book."

Surveying the faces of the not-totally-convinced, Funke tried again: "If you have another picture in your mind, keep it. The book doesn't change -- not one word - -for the movie. So you keep your picture and enjoy what's on the screen."

The visit was not complete without a reading: "That night -- when so much began and so many things changed forever -- Meggie had one of her favorite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn't let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and took it out."

Inkheart is the first volume of a trilogy that continues with Inkspell and concludes with Inkdeath. The critical acclaim and commercial success echo the response to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter phenomenon (though not yet, of course, to the same iconic level). Both fantasy series share a demographic that begins with tweens and teens, but also includes more mature readers (and now movie-goers). And both attracted the attention of Warner Bros. (which owns the film rights to Potter directly, and to Inkheart through its New Line Cinema).

"As she crept down the corridor she heard her father taking the chain off the front door, and when she reached the hall she saw him standing in the open doorway."

Funke reads with a lilting German accent, her English diction perfect, her command of it evident from her responses to questions. Nevertheless, Funke confided that not only does she still do all her writing in German, she also relies on a professional (an Englishwoman whom she regularly visits) to handle the translation.

"The night came in, dark and damp, and the rushing of the rain sounded loud and threatening. "'Dustfinger!,' called Mo into the darkness. 'Is that you?'"

To Inkheart devotees, a reading aloud is a special occasion, given the book's underlying premise that doing so can bring literary characters to life. It reflects Funke's own reverence for the power of book and characters.

"I'm a bookophile," she said. "I feed on books like chocolate. It's a real crazy passion."

Given that Inkheart was, to that extent, an homage to a personal passion, Funke confided that she "never thought it would be a bestseller."

On that point she was, of course, delighted to have been proven wrong. Writing is something she said she did not get around to doing until she was 28. Funke had begun her literary career as an illustrator, and in fact, still does illustrations for her books, as well as the covers for some editions.

She spoke of her commitment as a single mother to scheduling her writing around her time with her school age son. She did not dwell on the anguish of losing her husband to an untimely death three years ago.

"But then footsteps approached the house, and the man emerged from the darkness of the yard, his long coat so wet with rain that it clung to his legs."

So where does she get her ideas? Funke modestly gave all the credit to her characters.

"I never do a plan. I don't want to hear how it ends. I get very bored. I do about 20 chapters and then the characters take over. To me that's the great adventure of writing."

She spoke of one of the Inkdeath villains who is SOOOOOO evil, "I was very determined to kill him. I was looking forward to writing that chapter. I was going to kill him in a very cruel way. And I write this chapter and he gets away. So I feel like, 'How could this happen, Cornelia?' So I think there's probably a story there."

Which was Funke's way of addressing the question: will there be a fourth volume in the Ink series? Funke would not rule it out.

"The thing about stories," she said, "is they have a will of their own."