30 Days of Writing Questions - Day 19

19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself

into the spotlight and why

There is no character I've created that started out as a minor character and very quickly shoved himself so far into the spotlight that he's practically taken over the saga. When I wrote the original screenplay of Destiny the character of Esteban was basically a sidekick and a little bit of a mentor to Ketlan. Although he was in several scenes, he didn't talk in them much and faded to the background after the first 10-12 scenes. But Esteban happened to be in almost every scene on the first day of shooting Destiny and after seeing how the actor - the extremely talented Tanino Minneci - portrayed the character, and interacted with other characters, I realized there was so much more to the character then I had thought. I went home that night, watched the footage and took notes, then promptly proceeded to write three more scenes (one of which was 4 pages long) that focused on Esteban and establish not only more of his character, but his backstory with other characters like Ketlan and Esteban.

Since that first day of filming Esteban's character has continued to grow in importance. The second movie, Destiny II, was a prequel to the first and told the story of Esteban's life. The third movie, Destiny III (I'm so unoriginal) had him face off with his nemesis (which he actually stole from Ketlan - Balthazar was Ketlan's big bad guy but he ended up having much more of a feud with Esteban), and in the end the heroes won, but Esteban died. The character is now so complex and amazing that I can't believe he ever started out as a sidekick. I still wonder if Esteban wouldn't have taken over if Tanino hadn't been so freaking talented that I wanted to give the character more to do. But Tanino was, Esteban did, and they're both awesome.

Collage of Esteban, played by Tanino Minneci