The Perks of Imagining a Book Character as an Actor

Last year I saw the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and when I recently read the book it was impossible not to imagine the characters as the actors who played them in the film. It's so annoying that my imagination isn't able to override actors and actresses, no matter how hard I try. Even when I've read the book first it still gets me, although quite often I have trouble picturing characters in books anyway: my brain automatically switches off when a person's looks are described, and when I'm reading characters are usually just vague outlines. Even worse is when they get mixed up between films, so Sam from Wallflower and Hermione from Harry Potter now both look identical, and somewhere deep in my mind I'm sure I link the two characters together, despite the fact that they have nothing in common. It's sad that once it's gone I can never get back the innocence of a character with a blurry face, who just looks however I want them to look that day.

There are parts of Wallflower that wouldn't work as well without the film to complement them; when you have two mediums of a story that have different advantages in storytelling a lot of the blanks are filled in. For example, in the book it seems a bit stretched that Charlie, the main character, easily makes a group of friends, given how painfully shy and awkward he is, but in the film this is shown a lot more naturally. If you've seen the film first then problem solved, if you'd read the book first it might seem to fall into place  for him a little too easily. Since I had to read Dangerous Liaisons at university (one of the most boring experiences of my life) I've been a bit wary of epistolary fiction, but Stephen Chbosky uses it to really get deep into the character of Charlie and his confessions of being a horribly troubled teen. But I'll still never know how much of my empathy for the character would still exist if I couldn't picture the puppy-dog face of actor Logan Lerman when I was reading about Charlie's heartbreaking troubles. I suppose this is film messing with my ability to interpret the book as an individual work, but my brain just doesn't have the power to take on the might of Hollywood and its wicked ways. I loved the book, I loved the film, and I loved all of the characters, even if in my head one of them has magic powers and is friends with house elves and owls.