Well, this is after the civil war, and JMS knows it. If he tries to pass off that no Minbari has killed another in a thousand years, we'll all scream about the reset button... there have to be some effects among the Minbari of Rangers. We might not see them during the telemovie, though, especially if there are only two main character Minbari (unless Dulann and Firell are warrior caste/religious caste respectively? Dunno.) That's all speculation, though.
Sometimes when I'm running an audition, we'll read cold from the play. The actors will be able to check the lines for five minutes before they get onstage. As a director, you've already read the script a million times and can quote the thing from beginning to end, and you have a definite picture in your head of what each character looks like, talks like, and you can tell somebody even what they would do were someone to call them a nasty name. This is doubly true if you wrote the script and created that character) So, when you're at the audition, and you watch a number of actors get up and read those lines, they're gonna either hit, miss, or fall somewhere between what their portrayal is and who the character is.
Alex probably walked in, did his audition, and hit closest to the mark in JMS' head. Occasionally, you'll get a number of auditionees who don't fit at all, so you'll have to either audition again or take the most suited and hope for the best. But, occassionally, there's the rare actor that walks in and *is* your character.
The last musical I directed has as a main character Arthur, King of Britain. I had been sitting there for an hour and a half having auditionees read off lines over and over again to figure out who was the best Arthur (this is what you usually do in community theater... pick someone and hope for the best) when this kid walked in late, read the lines, and *was* Arthur.
So, it happens.
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Channe, the next JMS
--
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... and one fine morning - so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
-f. scott fitzgerald
