Shaun Tan's "The Lost Thing"

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Shaun Tan is a freelance artist and author, concentrating mostly on writing and illustrating picture books. He has received numerous awards for his picture books, including the CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) Picture Book of the Year Award for The Rabbits with John Marsden. In 2001 Tan was named Best Artist at the World Fantasy Awards in Montreal.

Here he shares his thinking about the ideal actor to narrate an adaptation of his picture book, The Lost Thing:

I have to say that I don't often think of my work in terms of film and casting, my mind is in the world of static, silent images most of the time. Also, there is some discussion currently of adapting The Arrival as a feature film and I wouldn't want to prejudice that by speculating on actors, directors and so forth - I'm really open to any suggestions. As most of my characters are anonymous, unnamed figures in my stories, I have a slight preference for 'no name' actors. However, in my picture book The Lost Thing (which is currently being adapted as an animated short), I imagined that the narrator's voice would be that of the Australian actor Noah Taylor, as he shares some qualities with the main character; or the voice of Hugh Jackman would be good.

Learn more about The Arrival, The Lost Thing, and their author at Shaun Tan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue