I think there is more than one way you might approach a problem like this, how I used to do it in ActionScript is doing something like…
1.) Export a symbol as “People_Display” in the SWF
2.) Make a class like class People extends People_Display
3.) At runtime, remove the instance created from the SWF (which will only be a “display” instance) and replace it with a new instance of your custom People class
For #3 I use this script: