Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin

This suggestion is off a list from http://fuckyeahnotredamedeparis.tumblr.com as part of an ideal casting. Oona Chaplin is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and  his 4th wife actress Oona O’Neill. Her mother is Geraldine Chaplin, another prolific actress and Patricio Castilla. Her family is full of actors and performers.

Oona Chaplin as Talia, Game of Thrones picture image

Oona Chaplin as Talia, Game of Thrones

Chaplin is most known for her role on HBO’s Game of Thrones as Talisa, a show only character. Talisa is a noble lady from Volantis turned wartime  medicine women turned Queen in the North who is killed at a wedding. Pre-season three, I thought she was a spy for the Lannisters as she did know a lot about Westeros and it would have merged the show with the book but no she was just  kick-ass strong women character.

 

Oona Chaplin as Zilpha Geary, Taboo picture image

Oona Chaplin as Zilpha Geary, Taboo

 Chaplin is a competent enough actress, not amazing but no means bad. She was decent as Talisa but she is better as Zilpha in Taboo. She is also going to appear in James Cameron’s Avatar universe so look forward to that.  

 

Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin

However being of Spanish descent does offer an intriguing aspect to Esmeralda that Chaplin could weave into Esmeralda’s characterization. Though Esmeralda in the book wasn’t Spanish, she did travel to Spain as a small child. It would be interesting to see an Esmeralda that had her unique speech  patterns that are a amalgamation of youth traveling around Europe.  That would be a new facet to a film adaptation of Esmeralda.  

 

Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin

I doubt Chaplin would be cast as a naive Esmeralda and probably would play the role closer to Hayek or the Disney characterization but it would interesting if they did make her that type of Esmeralda but kept her book backstory intact. It would be a decent merger of films and the book and would make the character still different.

 

Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin

Not sure if I need to say this but Chaplin has the look of Book Esmeralda. She has the dark eyes and hair that Hugo passingly described. She also has olive skin which Esmeralda has but as the result of traveling around Europe.  She does have a more angular face that I personally wouldn’t have envision for Esmeralda but it’s not a count against her especially of they didn’t go with the the type of Esmeralda that is more confident with her sexuality.

 

Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin

Oona Chaplin could play a very interesting version of Esmeralda giving the direction of the movie but what do you think? Do you see Oona Chaplin playing Esmeralda?