Westeros

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced the full cast for the world premiere of Game of Thrones: The Mad King, the new stage play based on George R. R. Martin’s novels, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke.

The production will run at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from Monday 20 July to Saturday 5 September 2026, with official opening night on Saturday 8 August. Set in the final years before the events of the novels, the play promises to bring audiences face to face with familiar figures from Houses Targaryen, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Martell.

Michael Shaeffer will play King Aerys II Targaryen. His long list of film and television credits includes Bodyguard, The Salisbury Poisonings, The ABC Murders, Chernobyl, Black Mirror, Game of Thrones, Kraven the Hunter, and Star Wars: Rogue One, where fans may remember him as General Corssin. This will be Shaeffer’s RSC debut.

Michael Shaeffer and the rest of the cast

Via Deadline, they have confirmed that Australian actress Annie Shapero has been cast to play the role of Alysanne Blackwood.

In the history as written by George R.R. Martin, Alysanne was the young maiden aunt of the even-younger Ben Blackwood, and was a skilled archer who took part in a number of battles during the Dance of the Dragons. It’s unclear how much of that will remain unchanged, but according to Deadline Alysanne will appear in five of the eight episodes in the third season of House of the Dragon.

Alysanne Blackwood at the Battle of the Burning Mill, a battle briefly featured during season 2 but without her presence being explicitly noted.

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.

Over at Not A Blog, George R.R. Martin provided an update on the casting of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is currently in production in Northern Ireland. We’ve previously

shared the casting of the two leads, but GRRM reveals that a number of other key roles have been cast. . . but it looks like HBO isn’t quite ready to reveal who they are, so they will remain nameless:

As we don’t know who most of the roles are (except for Egg, played by young actor Dexter Sol Ansell, whose video of getting his head shaved is featured in George’s post) we’ll present a gallery below of art by Roman Papsuev (remembered by fans from the early days as Amok or Amoka), commissioned by the Dabel Brothers and based, I believe, on Mike S. Miller’s designs for The Hedge Knight comic book.

Egg, by Roman Papsuev

HBO has just revealed that they have cast the two leads for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, known to fans world wide as Dunk and Egg. Peter Claffey, an Irish rugby player-turned-ctor, will be Ser Duncan the Tall. Dexter Sol Ansell has in turn been cast as Dunk’s squire Egg; Ansell’s been acting since the age of 4, and most recently appeared as the young Coriolanus in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to begin filming in Northern Ireland, the old stomping grounds of Game of Thrones, in June with production likely to last several months.

Now that production is in full swing, casting news for the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon was sure to be around the corner… and today we get the first tranche of new actors and roles for the show, courtesy of Variety. All four are characters from the original source material, described in George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood:

• Gayle Rankin will play Alys Rivers, “a healer and resident of Harrenhal”. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire.
• Multiple Olivier and Tony Award-winning actor Simon Russell Beale plays Ser Simon Strong, castellan of Harrenhal. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire
• Freddie Fox plays Ser Gwayne Hightower, son of Otto Hightower and brother to Queen Alicent. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire. Fans will remember that Gwayne rode against Prince Daemon at the tournament in the first episode, but that was a stunt actor who wore a helm throughout.
• Abubakar Salim will play Alyn of Hull, described as “a sailor in the Velaryon fleet” who participated in the Stepstones campaign. Spoilers at the Wiki of Ice and Fire

Brian Cox, star of Succession and many, many other films and television programs over the years, has revealed his near-brush with Game of Thrones in GQ, where an excerpt of his new memoir—titled Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Amazon affiliate link)—discusses his views on the monetary side of the acting business, and the sheer chance by which some programs become global hits and others fall flat. In the course of the excerpt, Cox writes that he’s often asked if he was ever offered a role in Game of Thrones:

HBO has confirmed a number of previously-unannounced cast members, confirming at least one casting that was already figured out by fans (the popular Graham McTavish of Outlander, The Hobbit, and Men in Kilts) and a number of other significant characters who play pivotal roles in the events covered by House of the Dragon, which is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood.

Top L-R: Ryan Corr, Jefferson Hall, David Horovitch, Graham McTavish. Bottom L-R: Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson and Gavin Spokes

HBO has confirmed two new names of actresses cast in the in-production House of the Dragon, and these are particularly interesting as they reveal that flashbacks will be used to convey part of the background to the events of the Dance of the Dragons. Per Hollywood Reporter, Milly Alcock and Emily Carey are part of the cast of the production. Alcock will be playing a young Rhaenyra Targaryen while Carey will play a young Alicent Hightower.

Milly Alcock, hailing from Australia, has appeared in a number of Australian television dramas and mini-series. Emily Carey, from the UK, has also done some television work, but has also been seen in film—notably, playing the young Diana of Themyscira in the first Wonder Woman and the young Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander.

GRRM has finally gotten his wish to break some news regarding House of the Dragon, revealing that British actor Fabien Frankel has been cast in the role of Criston Cole, a knight who will remembered (and reviled) in later days as the Kingmaker. A classically-trained actor who attended RADA and LAMBDA, he is a relative newcomer with his first credits in 2019 (the Emilia Clarke romcom Last Christmas, no less!) Most recently he has appeared in The Serpent, a BBC-Netflix co-production.

Fabien Frankel in Gone Today. Here Tomorrow.

HBO has announced a number of additional castings for House of the Dragon, which is set to begin filming this April. Deadline has a good report with details based on HBO’s official press release, but we’ll summarize here:

• Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Hand of the King
• Steve Touissant as Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides
• Eve Best as Rhaenys Targaryen
• Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria

The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Olivia Cooke (Ready Player One female lead) has been cast as Alicent Hightower, Emma d’Arcy has been cast as Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown) has been cast as the “rogue prince”, Daemon Targaryen. This follows rumors along those lines about Smith over the last couple of weeks.

Princess Rhaenyra (depicted by Magali Villeneuve), Queen Alicent (depicted by Doug Wheatley), Prince Daemon (depicted by Marc Simonetti)

From EW’s James Hibberd (whose Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon [paid link] is now out), HBO has revealed the first actor cast in next year’s House of the Dragon: Englsh actor Paddy Considine, known for a variety of roles including Edgar Wright comedies and, most recently, HBO’s The Outsider. According to the report, he has been cast to play King Viserys I Targaryen.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)” href=“https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paddy_Considine_2011_(cropped).jpg”>CC BY-SA from the Cambridge Film Festival

And now a surprise, as George R.R. Martin trots out Froggie the Gremlin for a most unexpected casting clue. For those who’ve missed them previously, for prior seasons Martin has occasionally revealed actors who’ve been cast in roles by the use of clues. Inevitably, he’d use his Froggy the Gremlin avatar to signal when it was a clue.

This one threw me, since it’s rather early to be casting season 4 when the 5th season isn’t even greenlit. But of course, others who are smarter (or at least in earlier timezones) resolved the clue quite quickly: “It’s the Pits!” refers to a specific pit that will be appearing this season, and the “son of Homer” is, of course, Bart Simpson.

A sharp-eyed fan (thanks, Jonas!) stumbled across the fact that Mero of Braavos, called the Titan’s Bastard, has been cast. The role of the notoriously brutal and untrustworthy sellsword captain is to be played by Mark Killeen, according to his CV. He also lists director Michelle McLaren as the director of the episode or episodes he appears in. As we’ve previously reported, MacLaren directed episodes 7 and 8 of the third season.

So, the notable sellswords Daenerys meets in Slaver’s Bay are largely accounted for. Is Brown Ben Plumm also in the cards? We’re pretty sure that if he does appear, it’ll be in the fourth season or even later, but you never really know.