HBO’s ‘A Game of Thrones’ cast as it stands
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
*Updated 9/24* Turns out, we don’t run Hollywood. The actual results of the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire casting continues to roll in. Each choice is unsurprisingly different than our original article about our choices for the show. Still, There is nothing really to complain about here.
So who have we got so far?
Eddard “Ned” Stark – Sean Bean
Catelyn Stark – Jennifer Ehle
Robb Stark – Richard Madden
Sansa Stark – Sophie Turner
Arya Stark – Maisie Williams
Robert Baratheon – Mark Addy
Jamie Lannister – Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Lena Headey – Cersei Lannister (Added 9/01/09)
Tyrion Lannister – Peter Dinklage
Daenerys Targaryen – Tamzin Merchant
Theon Greyjoy – Alfie Allen
Jon Snow – Kit Harington
Joffrey Baratheon – Jack Gleeson
Viserys Targaryen – Harry Lloyd
Sandor Clegane (The Hound) – Rory McCann
Added on 9/02/09
- Lena Headey cast as Cersei Lannister
- New Picture for Sophie Turner
- New Picture for Maisie Williams (Maisie has been spelled Maizie and Maisie by George RR Martin, so no idea on correct spelling)
Added on 9/24/09
- Rory McCann was added as Sandor Clegane (The Hound)
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Personally, I love just about every casting choice so far. The only two that worry me are Mark Addy (Fred Flintstone as Robert Baratheon?) and Alfie Allen (though that’s mostly because I keep seeing him as a normal teenager).
I have some reservations about a 22 year old Dany, but I’ll trust them to portray her younger and hope for the best. I’m still wondering about the ages of the actresses playing Arya and Sansa, since there is virtually no information available on them (thus the crappy pictures). Dany kind of needs to be at least 18 (Even though she isn’t in the books). But Arya and Sansa need to be closer to their ages in the book.
Mark Addy is the worst actor of all time, every thing he is in turns to shit (apart from the Full Monty).
Well, luckily I find Robert to be one of the weakest characters that the story has to offer. He really lends very little to the story besides fitting a couple stereotypes well. He could be a horrible actor, and as long as they didn’t give him a ton of screen time, it wouldn’t bother me at all.
What? Dude, I like Mark Addy
Yeah but you also like Samm Levine. You suck at actor appreciating.
Did Samm Levine like, steal a girl you were pining for or something? Your dislike for him is so idiotically passionate its borderline comical.
If Samm Levine steals your girlfriend it’s time to admit girls aren’t your thing.
It would be like if Stephen Hawking beat you in an arm wrestling contest.
Ouch. That was a low blow. :P
I think that all the Mark Addy detractors will be pleasantly surprised. This is a role that Addy will excel at and it is good to see that someone has finally realized that, as an actor, he is built for much more than the “funny fat man”. no pun intended, of course.
Look at Mark Addy’s career, he’s not made anything interesting apart from The Full Monty. Jack Frost, Down to Earth, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, all terrible, terrible movies.
Updated the post to reflect that Lena Headey has now been cast as Cersei Lannister. Also, added new pictures of the actresses playing Sansa and Arya.
This update makes me very happy. First of all, the girls playing Sansa and Arya look damn near perfect now that we can get a good look at them. If they are as good as George claims, they are going to be a highlight of the show.
Secondly, I need to address Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister. Those of you that read my original casting choices know that I actually cast Lena Headey in my choices as well. However, I cast her as Catelyn Stark, not Cersei Lannister. Those two characters are as fundamentally different as it gets.
At first, I was a bit surprised to see that casting choice. But the more I think about it, the more I think Lena will be able to nail this performance. And I’ll just say now: if she can pull off this role, it will be one of the best performances in the show. I will be completely sold on her acting at that point. Following The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it will be a good role to show her versatility.
When is this supposed to air? Have they even said yet? I guess that since they are filming soon, it should be aired sometime within a year or so perhaps.
Also, when the hell is Martin going to finish A Dance With Dragons? I want to read what happens next. Hopefully it won’t take a nearly getting killed in a car crash for him to finish the series like it did for Stephen King to finally finish the Dark Tower series. Perhaps I should go read through those books again while I wait for Dragons…
It starts filming this month. Zap2It’s article said that if it got picked up, it would be at least Fall 2010 before it hit the air. But that seemed like a no-brainer statement to me. I’d imagine the first season will get picked up before we get to see the episode they are going to air, if we ever officially get to see it. But I don’t know what HBO’s typical gameplan is with pilots.
I’m beginning to suspect we won’t see A Dance with Dragons this fall. :P But seriously, I’ve stopped even trying to guess. I was beginning to think, “Surely he’s almost done”. But then like last month he said that he had gotten more done on the book that month than he had in a long time, and he was hoping that would continue. Doesn’t sound like something you would hear if it was close. Surely by next fall, right? Surely.
Concerning A Dance with Dragons:
http://grrm.livejournal.com/106328.html
So…
Ned stark is a go. great actor. right build and face for it
Catelyn also a great choice
Arya also decent.. sansa also
Robb stark i can understand him looking a bit like a pretty boy with his stock from the south
but why in god’s name does jon snow look nothing like his father? they gave the family an italian look instead of a “northern” danish look
i find the casting horrible.
tyrion is one of my favourite characters.. the casting is horrible also
Viserys seems to fit. and theon also
my two biggest problems are Jon Snow and… Jamie Lannister
why is Jamie a hard faced man? he should be a “permanently smirking” man.
i am horribly dissapointed in this cast *don’t post spoilers*
Jon snow looks fine. That’s a glamor shot, he’s not going to look like a model in the show. And Jamie? Looks fine to me. Give him some blonde hair, and he is good to go.
And you say Tyrion’s casting is horrible? WTF? He looks dead on him. It doesn’t get much closer.
How can you look at that particular photo of the guy playing Jaime Lannister and not see “permanently smirking”? I don’t get “hard-faced” from that photo at all. I’m not worried about it because he played the captain on the Virtuality TV movie/pilot thing that aired earlier this summer. He was pretty good in it, although his character was nothing like Jaime.
I also think the actor playing Jon Snow actually *does* look like Sean Bean, albeit not compared to the photo of Bean in LOTR that is up there. Compared to Sean Bean with dark hair (like Goldeneye, for example) they look much more similar.
So to me, the casting looks uniformly excellent on paper. Hopefully everyone will work well on screen together.
SPOILERY OPINION ALERT!!! ************ ************* *********** **************** ********** ************ Probably because Jon Snow most likely isn’t Eddards son. He is most likely a Targeryan
Regarding the comments about Jon Snow not looking like Eddard Stark’s son, many fans of the series believe he is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, making Eddard his UNCLE, not his father.
A lot of the casting seems dead on to me, and as far as what doesn’t (Tamzin Merchant!!), I’ve decided to reserve judgment until I see the pilot.
Added Sandor Clegane’s (The Hound) casting choice to the list. Filming begins next month, and there are a couple other characters that will be announced between now and then.
Rory McCann certainly has the look for it.
First off, I want to say hello. HI EVERYBODY.
Secondly I want to say that I am so excited about this series I just peed myself. I think ALL of the actors are great picks. Mark Addy will be a great Robert. In the books Robert was such an ass that I wanted to kill him. Addy will be fine playing a drunk idiot. And look at the little smile in Nikolajs picture. If Jamie were about to kill me I imagine that’s pretty much the face he would have. Now lets just hope the writers at HBO don’t screw everything up.
I’m going into this show with a lot of faith. I’m really thinking that it’s going to be easy to get fans riled up with their changes. There are a lot of plot points, lines of dialogue, etc that have deep meanings and that mean a lot to the fans. So it’s going to be astoundingly easy to get people riled up over the changes. But I’m hoping that people will see past those changes, and judge the show on whether or not it still achieves the overall messages. If it can do that, I still think it will be worth it’s weight in gold.
Besides, there are so many people that I can’t convince to read a fantasy novel. If this show is half as good as the books, I think that may change quite a bit. The Harry Potter movies weren’t all great adaptations of the books, and they sometimes got the fans riled up. But I’d wager that they added even more readers to the series.
Two more casting clues being tossed about at George’s Not a Blog. The first is “The Little Brother”, and it’s assumed that this one is talking about Benjen Stark. Though it could possibly refer to a number of characters, including Bran or Renly. Still, given the clues, Benjen seems the logical choice. Most people believe that Joseph Mawle is the choice that fits the clues. The clues are as follows:
… was the great betrayer.
… worked at a tobacco factory.
… is a novel by Cory Doctorow that was nominated for the Hugo, but that doesn’t count.
… was the great betrayed.
… never went to space, but has been in freefall.
Joseph has apparently played both Judas and Jesus. He was in a movie called Freefall. And he worked at a theatre called the tobacco factory.
The second set of clues are for “The Old Knight”. This could potentially be either Ser Barristan Selmy, or Ser Rodrik Cassel. Here are the clues:
… is an experienced master at arms,
… has been a colonel, a doctor, a friar, a nazi, a sergeant, a superintendant, a corporal, and a minister,
… knows Cersei, Eddard, Ser Jorah, and Pussy Galore.
There are quite a few names being tossed around for this casting choice, so it seems that the clues were more obscure this time. the names I’ve heard: Derek Jacobi, Sean Connery (unlikely), Alun Armstrong, Ron Donachie. Ron Donachie looks like the likely the choice, as he has been placed in all the correct roles and with all the correct relationships by people much better at such things than myself.
So yeah, as soon as those two come out, I’ll be sure to update the list.
While Mark Addy may not be the best actor, it’s true that Robert’s role doesn’t demand that much as long as he can pull off some tantrums. He looks perfect for the role anyway – and doesn’t have a lot to do before he leaves the plot.
I absolutely love all their choices so far!
Jack Gleeson looks a bit young, but I keep forgetting Joff’s age because he’s such a bastard (oops, I really shouldn’t use that as an insult, what with Jon being one and all, should I?)
As for Tamzin Merchant’s age: unlike the other “children”, her age never really seems to be of any importance to her role. So whether she’s 15, 18 or 22 won’t really change much, except that the complexity of the role might be easier for an adult to be pulled off… which is why I really hope they made sure to pick child actors with awe-inspiring skills for the Stark girls and Joff.
I disagree about Daenerys’ age not being important. It’s probably the single most important age in the books. The change from a little girl is drastic for her. It doesn’t quite work the same if the character is significantly older. It certainly doesn’t carry the same meaning.
It seems to me that GRRM is going to delay the 5th installment to coincide with the premiere of the HBO pilot to drum up extra interest. Douche move, given that he’s strung readers along for 4 years already, but understandable. General opinion has been that he’s still finishing the book, but my take is that the book is already shrink-wrapped, and is just being delayed for political reasons.
As for the HBO series itself, the casting seems pretty solid – I worried about Robert’s actor being too much of a comic and not enough of a savage brute, but we’ll see. Also, I love the books to death, but there are spans of hundreds of pages where nothing happens but complex dialogue and intrigue. I am definitely worried that the producers will either cut way too much, or try to slog through all of the dialogue and the parade of side-characters at the expense of entertainment. Even with the many great adult actors they’ve brought in, the demands on child actors are going to be a strain in some scenes. In short, I’m fricking excited, and just hoping they don’t screw this up.
p.s. When’s the Wheel of Time TV series going to happen?! I’ve been saying for years that Eye of the World would be a kick-ass movie.
Personally, I hope a Wheel of Time series never gets made. I hope the series will finally sink into obscurity where it belongs. WoT is some of the worst fantasy I’ve ever read. It was derivative and boring with poor characters and poor quality to the writing as well. I will never be sure how it got so much attention. The books themselves in that series (as opposed to the writer in between books) kept stringing people along without anything really happening.
That would be a terrible idea. Why try to “drum up extra interest”? The books are still going to be there when the series launches, and the interest is going to be there either way. I don’t think there is any way the book is already done and sitting around waiting another year just for the show to be released.
As for the “hundreds of pages where nothing happens but complex dialogue and intrigue” and how it will translate to the show. Well, first, dozens of pages of dialog can equate into a 5+ minute conversation. So I wouldn’t really be so worried about that. Plus, each season is supposed to equate to a single book. The longest book so far has been A Storm of Sword (924 pages in my edition), so I think “hundreds” of pages might be a bit of an over exaggeration. Still, the way the books keep changing scenes will work great in a TV series, and help that break things up. I don’t think there will be a problem.
My only fear has been and continues to be, that the first book, and particularly the period that the pilot will be covering, is vastly different the majority of the series. So I’m afraid people (The people that need to greenlight the series, as well as fans) may judge the series one way or another before they really know what the meat of the show is about.
I just found these books about a month ago and immediately became addicted, I am on the third one. As far as i’ve seen I think the cast is spot on, especially Sean Bean, i’ve been a fan of his forever. I also believe Lena Heady will make a perfect Cercei Lannister. My only concern is for Tamzin Merchant and that’s only because I hated her in the Tudors, but if the pictures i’ve seen are her as Daenerys she definetly looks the part. I can’t wait for it to start, every time they show a promo and only say 2011, it drives me crazy. Waiting not so patiently – ganima
Well, you don’t have much to worry about then. Tamzin was replaced as Daenerys after shooting the pilot. I think it was probably a commitment issue. Emilia Clarke is now playing Daenerys.
BTW, be sure to check out the trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNhgIjyEock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43LW7a_NKMk
they all look nice here , what a suprise to the actuall seen actors