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The movie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won awards. Jack Nicholson, who portrayed McMurphy, won awards for his performance. But I read the book first and could never see him as McMurphy. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the movie much more had I not read the book first. I love the book but wonder how my reading of it would have been different had I seen the movie first.
On the other hand, in the book The Girl with all the Gifts Melanie is described as blonde and very light skinned, but in the movie she is portrayed by a dark-skinned young actress, yet this did not jar me at all. I think the difference for me is that physical characteristics were an essential part of McMurphy and very much intertwined with his character. I simply could not see Nicholson, as great an actor as he was, as a big, red-headed Irish Brawler and Conman running a wheel at a carnival, for instance. Nicholson's whole demeanor to me was not consistent with this character. On the other hand Melanie's skin colour did not make a difference to me in this role. There are of course many characters where skin colour is very important.
I've never given much thought to visualisation whilst reading. I think we all probably visualise to some extent. To the extent that I do so it is very much background and low key. It is certainly not like a movie in my head, though if a scene is described well I must visualise it to some extent. For instance, I'm thinking now of a descriptive scene from one book, and I do have a vision in my head of what the particular room looks like, though I don't consciously recall experiencing this vision whilst reading. For me I think a lot of the visualisation is subconscious, whilst to some of us it seems to be very vivid indeed.
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