Westeros

Access Hollywood has one of the most detailed Season 2 remarks from the actors and executive producers of HBO’s Game of Thrones. A lot of choice quotes here. But here’s a couple of highlights:

• Kit Harington confirms an old, old report (we first heard of it around the time S1 wrapped filming) that the production is headed to Iceland: “It was cold last season, but this season we’re going to Iceland,” he said. “It’s going to be freezing, so that’s going to be a bit of a task…it’s pretty grueling stuff for Jon Snow.””
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau apparently indicates some not-from-the-books new characters are part of his story: “I heard they were going to add new characters, but I didn’t know what that meant,” he explained. “I know now. And it’s very cool.”
• Executive producers Benioff and Weiss confirm some A Storm of Swords plot details will figure into the second season “They also revealed that some plot details from Martin’s third novel, “A Storm of Swords,” will be used in Season 2.”

The voting for this year’s Ennie Awards is now open to the public, and Green Ronin—publishers of A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying—are up for several awards!

Of note, the A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is up for three awards: Best Cover Art (this is by the amazing Michael Komarck), Best Setting, and the coveted Product of the Year. GR has a number of other products nominated, including their DC Adventures Hero’s Handbook which is also competing in the Product of the Year category.

Congratulations to Green Ronin, and please considering weighing in with your vote!

There have been many reports and tweets covering the panel (with reports stating as many as 7,000 people were waiting in line for a relatively few vacant seats), and we expect to have some fuller reports down the road, but in brief one of the main questions on the minds of many—whether the panel might unveil any cast-but-unannounced roles—was answered quite succinctly: no.

This was a celebration of the first season, the actors and the writers and the fans, and though the second season was discussed somewhat, it was not in any great detail.

Lots and lots of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones, and Wild Cards-related events at San Diego Comic Con. Below, we’ll try and pick out some of the most notable:

We previously posted our video with our thoughts on ADwD, but that was a bit scattershot.

Now we’ve added our written review of the book, which includes some context for its writing and what we believe its place is in the overall narrative. It’s a hefty book (over 3 lbs., we’re told), and there’s a lot to consider, so this review came out… uhm, rather lengthy!

And another casting has now been revealed by James Hibberd of EW (who scores a hat-trick, with three casting announcement scoops in one day)!

Joining Carice van Houten, Stephen Dillane, and Oliver Ford Davies is actor Liam Cunningham, late of Starz’s now-cancelled Camelot. This, paired with Dillane having been in the film King Arthur (in the role of Merlin), suggests Camelot actor Clive Standen was absolutely on the mark when he said a Camelot actor and another one who’d been in some other Arthurian production were being cast.

Cunningham, an Irish actor and veteran of stage and screen, has been involved in a number of genre productions besides Camelot; including Dog Soldiers, the remake of Clash of the Titans, and Centurion.

We pretty quickly figured out that George’s latest casting clue concerned the Laurence Oliver Award-winning actor Oliver Ford Davies would play the part of Maester Cressen, and now GRRM has confirmed!

Cressen is an aged maester in the service of Stannis Baratheon. Having served Stannis’s father, Lord Steffon, Cressen went on to serve Stannis after Robert—newly-crowned—appointed him as Lord of Dragonstone. Cressen has advised Stannis over the years, but is growing old and increasingly marginalized as Melisandre of Asshai, a red priestess of R’hllor from the far-distant land of Asshai, begins to hold sway at Stannis’s court. Melisandre and Stannis have both been cast, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the Cressen news has come out to compliment it.

Below, we have a video featuring an excellent scene from the 2009 Hamlet featuring David Tennant (perhaps best known for his Dr. Who stint) and Davies in the roles of Hamlet and Polonious, respectively. (As a side note, the clip is part of a video series comparing a number of productions of Hamlet—it’s quite an amazing idea!)

James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly has the scoop!

Melisandre of Asshai, also known as the Red Woman, will be played by Dutch actress Carice van Houten, perhaps best known internationally for her leading role in Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book. She’s also recently co-starred with Sean Bean in the british medieval action-horror film Black Death (a nice still of her from that film can be found here).

As for Stannis Baratheon, King Robert’s brother (and Renly’s elder brother), an HBO veteran has ended in the role, British actor Stephen Dillane. Dillane received an Emmy nomination in his role of Thomas Jeffreson in the much-lauded HBO miniseries John Adams.

Below we have a couple of videos featuring both actors (Van Houten in an interview, Dillane in a scene as Jefferson). This looks like another great casting job by Emmy nominated casting directors Nina Gold and Robert Sterne!

Via Not a Blog, George has a brand new casting clue:

Have at it, Game of Thrones fans!

This is quite cool: George R.R. Martin will be visiting Google as part of the Authors@Google series. This means about an hour of Martin speaking about his work (and, doubtless, the TV series based on it), and for the first time ever, this Authors@Google appearance will be live-streamed on July 28th at 12PM PDT via the @Google Talks page.

Best of all, Google’s accepting questions from fans out on the internet, with a nifty use of their Google Moderator system to allow people to vote questions up or down. If you’d like to submit a question, or weigh in on questions that are already there (you’ll even find one from Linda and I, under the user name Balerion300) , you can find the submission and voting page here through the 27th at 12PM PDT.

And now for a musical interlude.

Of course, Ramin Djawadi’s soundtrack (US: CD, MP3; UK: CD) is out there (and it’s quite excellent, too!). His main title theme may have been overlooked at the Emmys, but it’s inspired many, many incredible covers.

But the show itself has inspired musical artists, and music fans in general, to take it all a step further. Below, we present two of the more recent efforts that caught our attention.

The 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (US, UK) is now shipping!

The award-winning artist John Picacio has unveiled all twelve images, with commentary, on his blog. Not only does he describe the basic process, but he provides explanations about his inspirations, his views on the characters, and more. The detail with which he’s able to render characters is quite amazing.

Some truly amazing work here! Linda and I are especially fond of are his depiction of the Others (or White Walkers, as they’re usually called on HBO’s TV adaptation) and his Melisandre. Ice and fire, indeed. I’m also quite fond of his terrific depiction of the Red Viper taking on the Mountain that Rides.

NPR’s weekend edition of All Things Considered recorded an interview with George R.R. Martin concerning his work which will be broadcast shortly, generally at 5 P.M. (check your local listings). The audio will be added to this article soon, but if you want to listen live, it looks like WAMU streams live and will be carrying the program shortly.

Pearson Moore, featured writer for Westeros.org, is putting together a companion book for the first season of Game of Thrones.

This “Direwolves and Dragons Season One Omnibus” will contain every episode essay from Season One, plus essays on some of the major characters—;Tyrion Lannister, Bran Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, and Arya Stark, to name a few.  What would you like to see in a companion book?  Vote on the essay you would like to read in “Direwolves and Dragons”.  The top two vote-getters will be included as 3500 to 6000 word essays in Pearson Moore’s Season One companion book, set for release in late August.  Here’s the poll:

At the Union Square signing, George R.R. Martin answered quite a few questions… and was presented with a gift basket of delicious, “A Song of Ice and Fire”-inspired food by a fan of the Inn at the Crossroads, the terrific food blog that’s been looking at the food of the setting. We did an interview with them for Suvudu last month, which you can find here.

Well, the gift gave George the perfect moment to reveal something quite cool: Random House will be publishing A Cookbook of Ice and Fire (possibly a tenative title), written by Inn at the Crossroads founders Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer! Well-deserved, and one we’ll be looking forward to. You can find editor Anne Groell confirming the news here, and GRRM’s statement in the video embedded below.