Do you picture actors in your mind when you read?

[Madchal33]

Absolutely. This helps me to really understand the book and makes it more enjoyable. The only bad part is that, in my experience, my mental depiction of the story is typically ruined by hollywoods opinion if there is a movie. This was first experienced when I read The Kite Runner in my younger days. The movie ruined that book for me.

[NadineTimes10]

Only if I've seen a movie based on a book before actually reading the book, otherwise I imagine the characters the way they're described.

This happens to me as well, if I've seen the movie first, but the longer I read, the more the images of the actors' faces wear off. I may also picture a book's characters like the actors in whatever movie I watched last, even if the movie is totally unrelated, if I start reading directly after watching a movie, but that wears off after a while, too.

[BookWorm82]

Absolutely

[april-ballard]

When I read its like watching a movie for me. Some authors put a lot of description in their writing, for some its the characters, others concentrate on scenery. In some cases, less is more.
When I write, I often times close my eyes and 'play the movie', typing as the scenes unfold. My character descriptions are dispersed throughout the first couple chapters. Depends on where my 'movie' takes me.

[Jamie fred84]

YES!! I see everything that goes on in the story!! Once I get into it I see it like a movie, when I first got into reading (like a lot) and I would have to stop for some reason I thought "oooh I have to pause!" LOL

[zumana]

OH MY GOODNESS DO I DO THIS!!!!! I will deliberately find actors and actresses that match the authors description. I have to. It helps me soooo much, and the books come alive even more. I read "The Halfling Trilogy" by Heather Burch and two of the characters (Zero and Vegan) I had as Tom Felton and Emma Watson (massive Dramione shipper here.) Its actually unintentional sometimes.

mEWEEEEE Tooo and i cant help it. Its always Draco and Hermone.Always.

[kpaasch26]

Yes! I have often pictured actors in my mind when I read any books! It makes me to enjoy the books. However, it isn't the actors every time when I read books. I just imagine some characters with what the author descripe the character. If the author says that the character has a long flowing blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes, I tend to paint that exact picture in my mind.

[KVanKampen]

For me it depends on if I read the book before or after the casting. For instance, with the Harry Potter series, I had read it before the movies so bad ideas in mind for the characters. Even now when I read them again, I see the characters as I originally pictured them, not as the actors. However, if I know who is cast then it will somewhat make a difference in how I see the character. I never quite see them as the actor but they make have a similar build or facial features as the actor.

[RussetDivinity]

Not at all. I usually go off the author's description, and even after a movie comes out, I tend to stick with that author's description, at least for the major characters. Picturing them as actors would mean I'd have to hold the image of the actor in my mind as I read, and I've always had a lot more trouble with that than with just creating my own image of the character.

[Jolyon Trevelyan]

No i don`t do that.

[AetherPirate]

When editing my own stuff I hear Patrick Stewart. If he can't make it sound good, no one can.

[H0LD0Nthere]

AARG! NO! I make my own mental pictures of the characters, and I find it really annoying when I watch a movie based on the book and the actor or actress messes with my already-created mental picture.

[BayleetheBookworm]

Very rarely, only when the book has been made into a show/movie and I know what those actors look like, and when a character is described and it really reminds me of a specific actor. It's really important to me that I imagine what the characters look like myself, so I always read the book before watching the movie/show and I try to avoid everything to do with movie/show book adaption trailers, posters, etc. The more popular ones are harder to avoid like Game of Thrones and The Fault in Our Stars (is it just where I live or were the posters everywhere for other people?)

[bookowlie]

AARG! NO! I make my own mental pictures of the characters, and I find it really annoying when I watch a movie based on the book and the actor or actress messes with my already-created mental picture.

You took the words right out of my mouth. When I saw the movie Gone Girl, all of the actors/actresses were not anything like my own pictures in my head of the book's characters. I didn't care for the movie for many reasons and this aspect just added to my disappointment.

[1ChiGeek]

I do this all the time. I usually have a hard time getting into the movie version of the character when they don't match the one in my head.