Westeros

HBO has announced three new cast members for House of the Dragon Season 3, each taking on important roles as knights caught up in the brutal Dance of the Dragons. I believe at least one of these has been hinted at previously, when Steve Toussaint posted an image of a script listing a number of characters who were present.

You can see the list of the actors and their characters below, as well as some additional thoughts from us!

Barry Sloane, Tom Cullen, and Joplin Sibtain.

The latest episode of The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast, co-hosted by House of the Dragon show runner Ryan Condal and his friend and fellow prop collector David Mandel—whose credits include Seinfeld, Veep, and White House Plumbers—features prosthetics artist Waldo Mason, who joins them to discuss his career, creative process, and some behind-the-scenes teases from House of the Dragon Season 3 where he works as the lead makeup special effects artist.

Waldo Mason is a legendary figure in prosthetics, with a career spanning over thirty years. His work has brought creatures, wounds, and faces to life in films like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the Harry Potter series, Game of Thrones, and Rogue One. He’s also a worked on a number of Ridley Scott productions going back to Gladiator (he has some frank remarks to make about a certain star’s behavior on set at the time), as well as Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus.

In the episode, there’s a fun moment where Ryan hints there’s something in Season 3 he’d like to “liberate” for his own collection—prompting Waldo to laugh and ask, “Well, is it large?” Apparently not, but Ryan and he would confer about there maybe needing to be two of what object he was interested in. Waldo also shares that he was particularly eager to sculpt two specific heads this season. One didn’t appear in the initial brief, to his disappointment—but it sounds like it made it into the revised plan after all. See below for our guess, and beware spoilers drawn from Fire and Blood!

 

A big splashy announcement of a recent advance by Colossal Biosciences, creators of the “wooly mouse”, with the revelation that they have essentially recreated the 10,000-years extinct dire wolf which once roamed North America. The first two are named Romulus and Remus, after the legendary founders of Rome who were nursed by a she-wolf, while their younger “sister” is named… Khaleesi.

But what really got our attention was the concurrent reporting from The Hollywood Reporter that not only explicitly links the wolves with the direwolves of Game of Thrones, but also reveals that none other than George R.R. Martin is an investor and adviser… and so, too, is Peter Jackson, who provided a certain prop for a photoshoot with Romulus and Remus that Game of Thrones fans may recognize…

House of the Dragon‘s third season officially kicked off a few days ago, and HBO wanted to make sure everyone knew it by having star Emma d’Arcy make the announcement in a video:

There’s quite a bit more news besides that, however, as some new castings have been revealed… and a new interview with show runner and co-creator Ryan Condal responds to some questions from EW about the season to come… and gives his version of the situation that stirred a great deal of controversy preceding it.

As far as the casting goes, two northerners have been announced: Dan Fogler will play Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Tommy Flanagan will play

“Ser” Lord Roderick Dustin. Better known as Roddy the Ruin to fans, in Fire and Blood he’s the Lord of Barrowton and is almost certainly not a knight who follows the Seven, but for whatever reason this press release claims he is; we’ve reached out to clarify, as errors about these sorts of titles have happened in the past.

[Edit: Ryan Condal has since confirmed to us that Roderick is a lord on the show, not a knight.]

See the full press release that came with the announcement, and list of returning cast members as well as confirmed new ones, below!