Westeros
The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain
News
Over at EW, James Hibberd has posted the first of fifteen exclusive interviews ahead of the March 31st premiere of Game of Thrones. The first interview features Gwendoline Christie—Brienne of Tarth on the show—discussing initial reactions to her casting and her character’s journey, with just a wee bit of detail regarding scenes she’s filmed for this season.
Check it out, and keep an eye on the #EWThrones hashtag on Twitter to learn when the rest of the interviews are published, as they will be once each weekday until the premiere.
Last night, we posted about the Game of Thrones-themed Sports Illustrated Power Issue. We now have the podcast—hosted by Richard Deitsch—with GRRM, which you can find here along with a partial transcript of some of Martin’s remarks.
It’s very much sports-oriented, but there’s some remarks that touch on the characters and the setting (such as Martin’s comparison of knights to athletes).
We’ve placed this interview in the So Spake Martin collection, where you’ll find a great deal of links to interviews, correspondence, and reports from readings, panels, and conventions.
At some point, I need to gather up all these interviews with actors that have been sneaking out the last month or two, and just make a big post with them all. Until then, however, here’s a interview with Rose Leslie, who plays Ygritte on Game of Thrones, courtesy of Access Hollywood. Nice to hear from her, as she didn’t get much in the way of attention for the second season when her role was something of a late entry into the series.
James Hibberd at EW has another scoop regarding season 3 of Game of Thrones. Just as with last year’s reveal that The National performed “The Rains of Castamere” for the show, indie rock band The Hold Steady are performing a rendition of—get this—“The Bear and the Maiden Fair”, a very popular bit of song in Westeros.
Hibberd quotes the producers:
So, that will be rather interesting to hear. I’m guessing it’ll be included on the official soundtrack for season 3, as well… and may well be released as a single before hand.
The official Game of Thrones Twitter channel has just started unleashing a series of official character posters for season 3, which shall soon see an extended version of the season 3 trailer hit HBO, HBO On Demand, and (we suspect) the internet.
These posters will begin to appear in print and outdoors promotion (think bus stops and buses, posters, etc.) from next week. You can see them all below:
Over at Entertainment Weekly, James Hibberd has the scoop with the exclusive premiere of the season 3 poster, featuring a silhouette of one of Daenerys Targaryen’s young dragons in flight. An interesting image to choose from. As Hibberd notes, the first season was Ned Stark on the Iron Throne, the second was a hand grasping a crown. These both refer to the central storylines of the previous two seasons, with Ned in King’s Landing as Hand and the War of the Five Kings. A shift to Dany suggests they may be emphasizing her storyline this year.
Well, this is a surprise: the season 3 trailer for Game of Thrones will get its world premiere on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Friday, with it going up on Youtube immediately after the East Coast airing. Here’s the press release, straight from HBO:
WORLD PREMIERE OF HBO® GAME OF THRONES® SEASON 3 TRAILER ON JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22
â`“ Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m./ 10:35 p.m. CT on ABC â`“
New York, N.Y., February 21, 2013 â`“ The Season 3 trailer of HBO’s Game of Thrones makes its exclusive world premiere on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC) on Friday, February 22nd. A big fan of the series, Kimmel kicks off the countdown to the new season premiere on Sunday, March 31 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, exclusively on HBO, with the all-new 60-second trailer that will offer a first look at the action and treachery that continues in the visually stunning series that has become a pop culture phenomenon.
HBO has just announced a traveling exhibit that will start in March and appear in five different countries from March to June. It sounds like it’s going to feature some pretty remarkable things. Locations include Toronto, New York City, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, and Belfast, Full details below:
FANS INTO THE KINGDOM OF WESTEROS
â`“ Free of Charge to the Public, HBO® Exhibit Tours
Toronto, New York, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam and Belfast â`“
New York, N.Y., February 19, 2013 â`“ One of the most popular fantasy television series â`“ HBO’s Emmy® and Golden Globe®-winning Game of Thrones â`“ will come alive for fans in an immersive, not-to-be-missed touring exhibition that will transport viewers into the breathtaking and enchanted world of Westeros. Based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling books, Game of Thrones is an intricate and visually stunning epic series that has captured the imagination of fans globally with its striking characters that live in a world whose summers and winters can last years.
The traveling exhibit, the first of its kind by HBO, has been created to bring the vivid and rich world of Westeros to fans in five international cities â`“ Toronto, Canada; New York City, New York; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Amsterdam, North Holland and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Presented by HBO and international partners, the exhibition is free to the public and focuses on key characters from five of the noble houses (Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon and Greyjoy), showcasing a treasure trove of more than 70 original artifacts from seasons 1 and 2, plus select pieces from this year’s new season.
The official Making Game of Thrones production blog has a post detailing the ending of season 3 filming late last year in Iceland. The environment they were in sounds rather amazing:
“We are filming by special permission at the power station in Krafla, high on the top of a mountain with steam plumes from a geothermal spa nearby twisting into the sky. Every so often a waft of the sulphurous waters blows by. It’s not really a welcome visit.”
As to what they were filming? Despite it being at the very end of the shoot, it’s an opening scene from the first episode, directed by Dan Minahan. Some spoilerish details follow:
We’ve noted this previously, but a new article in Texas A&M’s The Eagle provides some amazing insight into the forthcoming Deeper than Swords exhibition at the Cushing Library, focused entirely on A Song of Ice and Fire and the many things that have been born from it. George R.R. Martin was invited to have his life’s work archived at the library back in 1993, in recognition of his contributions to science fiction and fantasy fiction and television, and has been a “dream donor” ever since.
Among the holdings in their archives:
‘‘More than 900 of the author’s books line the wall. The shelves are filled with Martin’s collaborative work, books he has edited, articles about him, manuscripts and correspondence.
“Intermingled with the paper products are VHS mastertapes, tickets from the Emmy Awards, boxes of trading cards, HBO tchotchkes given to actors, board games and programs for conventions where fans congregate to play board games. Nestled with the loot are life-sized replicas of Ned Stark’s greatsword and Robert Baratheon’s warhammer.”
Concerning the event itself, here’s what The Eagle has to say:
“The library’s exhibit, “Deeper than Swords,” will run from March 22 through December and is free to the public. An exhibit and author signing will last from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. March 22 at Cushing Library. Tickets for a priority signing line are sold out, but a limited number of first-come, first-serve fans will be granted an audience. Food vendors offering medieval treats will be located outside the library, along with actors from the The Texas Renaissance Festival, who will host games to win tickets to the fall event.
“At 6:30 p.m. Martin will give a lecture and answer questions at Rudder Auditorium. More than 1,100 of the 2,400 seats are taken, and reservations can be made for the free event at the MSC Box Office.”
(Many thanks to Olaf Keith for pointing this article out.)
HBO and Best Buy have partnered together for a special launch event at Best Buy’s Union Square store in New York City for the Game of Thrones: Complete Second Season Blu-ray and DVD sets (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD), and it sounds like they’ve some exciting plans in store. Read on to learn just what’s going on… and how you can win a chance to get early access to the event!
February 19 sees the release of the Game of Thrones Complete Second Season setin the US, and March 4th should see it out in the UK and more widely in Europe (Pre-order: US Bluray, US DVD, UK Bluray, UK DVD).
For those anticipating it, we’ve shared clips and details, but thanks to HBO, we’ve had the opportunity to get an early review copy. In brief, it lives up to the production values of the previous season, and in some places (such as the Histories, which I consider my personal favorite extra) exceeds them. The Blu-ray set is a showcase of the show’s very high production values, revealing it in the full glory of 1080p.
Courtesy of HBO, it looks like George R.R. Martin has taken the black:
Earlier in the month, we shared the news that Factory Entertainment had secured a license to produce collectibles along the lines of plush animals, throw pillows, prop replicas, and sculptural miniatures. Now, we have our first glimpse at some of their products, courtesy of Action Figure Times. In this gallery focused on Factory Entertianment’s display at Toy Fair 2013, we have two images showing Game of Thrones products.
The first image features some soft dragon eggs and a couple of house throw pillows, while the second image displays a few rather cute plush direwolves (notice Ghost with the red eyes), as well as a Targaryen throw pillow which suggests they’ll all features the house motto as well as the sigil.
Factory Entertainment expects to start releasing products in Summer 2013.
Back in October, we stumbled across the fact that young actor Dean-Charles Chapman had a role in season 3 of Game of Thrones, as revealed by his talent agency. We did some digging, got some fairly solid leads as to who he might be playing, and we dutifully asked for confirmation. We were informed that that wasn’t possible, so we let it lie and, I admit, rather forgot about it. Since his casting has been more widely publicized, we’ll share what we learned back then: