Rodrigo Santoro

When I began writing Angel, there was a character I’d seen somewhere who matched the vision I kept having. I dreamed this blonde Guardian angel fell in love with a handsome, Latin man, who was soft spoken, with a smooth exotic accent. My character was striking, but almost embarrassed at how women fell into his arms so easily. I like writing Alpha males. This one was/is a painter, and I decided he should be from Brazil, and be fearless the way he loves.

I began writing the story December 15th. On Christmas Eve, I was watching one of my favorite movies, Love Actually, which has become somewhat of a tradition in our family, and, sitting next to my grown children and husband, there he was. My hero. Karl, Laura Linney’s love interest. The actor was Rodrigo Santoro. When I searched his background, I found he was from Brazil.

I collected a series of Brazilian love songs (I don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese) and jazz, watched exerpts of his almost-love scene, where they undress, after I’d stretched the three minute segment using super slow mo on my computer, to a whopping fifteen minutes. I could see every ripple of his gorgeous washboard chest, the way he smiled, the twinkle in his eye when her dress got caught, how he carefully but commandingly kissed her. Laura Linney either did a really great job of acting, or she was into it. Big time. Slow motion doesn’t lie…

And then I found this ad he made with Nicole Kidman for Chanel No. 5. My story has a happy ending, a true romance ending, but other than that, this was my story, with different characters. My female is Claire, a Guardian angel, fair and angelic, but a rebel, bored in her station of life, looking for a little adventure, not knowing she was missing true love.

Did you notice the Director begins his narrative with an angel in the lower left corner of the screen? In my version of Heaven, not all angels have wings. On weekends they have a golden playhouse that only plays the same piece each week, with different actors: a musical version of Peter Pan. And Tinkerbelle is the lead in Heaven’s version, a much coveted role.

How amazing when I heard a translation of an interview with this actor, telling the audience he’d love to bring a children’s Peter Pan production to Brazil.

There are several other circumstances that make this magical story one I am preparing to launch. But the purpose of this post isn’t really to self-promote. It is to share just a kernel of where all the passion and desire to tell this story came from.

Because as a writer, we sometimes do fall in love with our characters. I certainly did. How about you?