From EW, the pilot production for HBO’s new Game of Thrones successor show—“The Long Night”, as George calls it (but HBO tells him not to)—has collected eight new actors as well as announed its director.
Veteran TV director S.J. Clarkson will direct. Her credits include HBO’s prestige series Vinyl (which, sadly, failed to draw in viewers), Jessica Jones, Life on Mars, and much more—and
was set to helm the as-yet unnamed new Star Trek film. Joining her and the previously-announced Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse are eight additional actors. See their details below!
First, one of them is Jaime Campbell Bower, who EW failed to note is not at all new to the Game of Thrones pilot universe—he was the original Ser Waymar Royce in the original pilot filmed in 2010!
Besides him, there’s a good summation from The Hollywood Reporter:
Cast as series regulars are Naomi Ackie (next appearing in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars), Denise Gough (Guerrilla, Tony-nominated for Angels in America), ..., Sheila Atim (Harlots), Ivanno Jeremiah (Black Mirror, Humans), Georgie Henley (The Chronicles of Narnia), Alex Sharp (To the Bone) and Toby Regbo (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald).
At this early stage, it’s impossible to guess who these various actors will play. But the casting announcment came on the heels on an anonymously-sourced (and thus not entirely to be trusted) Belfast Telegraph story about the production of the pilot which the Telegraph claims will begin with location shoots in the Canary Islands before moving to Northern Ireland for completion in the autumn. If true (a big if, we have to note), this may suggest that the story may focus almost as much on Essos as Westeros, at least in its beginnings, if we assume the rugged, dry landscape of the Canaries seem more like the East than the Seven Kingdoms.
Certainly, GRRM has hinted as much regarding some the successors, that they are not all confined solely to Westeros, and Naomi Watt’s role has made some wonder if her character isn’t supposed to represent an easterner from a more advanced society than Westeros in the era of the Long Night.