David J. Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for HBO’s Game of Thrones, has been adding words to the Dothraki lexicon and this time around he decided to immortalize those who attended his Worldcon presentation (which you can download the notes and materials for!) by turning their names into Dothraki words. Some interesting details appear along the way (including the fact that Peterson has a notion of what ‘old Dothraki’ sounds like and how sounds shifted to ‘modern Dothraki’!)
Via Twitter, Peterson’s has also noted that he’ll be making an appearance at the Dothraki.org IRC chat on Sunday at the “usual times” (afraid I’m not quite sure what time that is) where he will make “announcement, of sorts”. Mysterious!
Alyssa Rosenberg has been doing a bang-up job over the past few months of discussing A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones from a critical perspective, so it’s no surprise when she responds at length (NOTE: there may be some ADwD spoilers) to a very criticil piece from Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown. It’s definitely worth reading if you’ve an interest in media criticism, and feminist criticism, at that.
I recall reading Doyle’s post and thinking that many of the characterizations of the text were things I’ve seen before written in a much more dialog-encouraging way (no surprise there, since I’ve read them on the forum). Are there reasonable points buried in that quagmire of an outlandishly exaggerated axe-grinding exercise? I’m sure there are, otherwise Rosenberg wouldn’t have taken the time to give it enough serious consideration as to set about demolishing it.
In any case, if nothing else, Rosenberg’s response is worth reading in and of itself. Go and give it a look.
The long road to Emmy night has led to looks at various nominated shows and interviews with nominated people, and the same holds true for Game of Thrones. Deadline Hollywood has already interviewed Emmy-nominated lead hair stylist Kevin Alexander (who shared some interesting details about his job on the production—who else realized they had given Isaac Hempstead-Wright red highlights for his role as Bran?) and now they’re talking to executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Nothing too detailed, but they do touch on the matter of budget.
Also, this quote’s a bit mysterious:
A bit scary, that.
This is fascinating article interviewing foley artist Caoimhe Doyle—part of the Emmy-nominated foley team for Game of Thrones—which discusses in some detail the process of providing all the various sounds in both background and foreground that really cement the action in the minds of viewers. From galloping horses to splashing mud and on to a detailed discussion of Tywin Lannister skinning the deer, this one’s a great article from the Irish Film & Television Network. Well worth reading!
Two more casting notes have come in today, and I think these are quite fun. First off, despite our own thinking that the Iron Islands casting had pretty much wrapped up, it appears that the old master-at-arms of Pyke, Dagmer Cleftjaw, has been cast according to Winter is Coming. British actor Ralph Ineson apparently has the role—quite a change from the character as described, at least age-wise, as Cleftjaw’s said to have a snow-white beard and seems to sound as if he’s in his late 50’s or early 60’s. I’m going to guess that the wound that gives Cleftjaw his name is not going to even be attempted by the show, as that’d be rather extreme make-up! Ineson is among the new cast members who can be found on Twitter.
And just now, EW has the scoop on the casting of Salladhor Saan, a Lyseni pirate king who hires his sails out to Stannis Baratheon, and is an old friend of Davos Seaworth. According to EW, British-born stage and actor Lucian Msamati—who I remember very fondly from HBO’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as JLB Matekoni—has been cast in the role.
Given our previous casting exclusive regarding Pyat Pree (which also discusses the casting of Balon Greyjoy and Podrick Payne), I think there’s a topic I need to revisit…
HBO’s slowly doling out a few new casting notes, which is always exciting! This time around, we’ve got a look at another Qartheen character to join Nonso Anozi in that part of Daenerys’s story on the continent of Essos: actor Ian Hanmore will play Pyat Pree (HBO writes Pyatt, which may be the official spelling for the series, but we’ll go with his book spelling). Pyat Pree is one of the warlocks of Qarth, who legend claims wield great powers thanks to a sorcerous potion they drink called the shade of the evening. Holding their colloquies in the House of the Undying, the warlocks join the Pureborn and the merchants in determining the fate of the ancient, proud city… and the fate of those who enter it.
In other significant news, Winter is Coming has the scoop that veteran English actor Patrick Malahide has been cast as Balon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands and father to Theon Greyjoy. Having launched a failed rebellion years ago in which his eldest sons were killed and his youngest son was taken away by Ned Stark as a hostage and ward, Lord Balon has brooded these last years only to see a war spread across the Seven Kingdoms, a war that offers opportunities. Malahide has many credits to his name (including the 1994 BBC production of Middlemarch, and before that the ground-breaking The Singing Detective [widely hailed as one of the greatest television productions ever aired]). He can be seen below in an interview presiding British Equity:
After a long hiatus, it appears that Swedish publisher Forum is giving the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series a third try in translation. Originally having published the first novel back in 1997, slow sales in Sweden led them to drop it until a few years ago when they published the first three novels in the series in translation. Again, however, slow sales—Sweden has a very high percentage of readers who read genre fiction in English rather than in translation—led them to stop. Now they’re back at it, republishing the first three books in paperback and then tackling A Feast for Crows.
Right when the TV series was in the offing, there were efforts to get Forum to bring the books back into print, including some e-mails from us urging them to that effect. The staggering popularity of the new novel, and the series in general following HBO’s television adaptation, seems to have finally swayed Forum to give it another chance.
Here’s their present publishing plan, with the first three novels being republished in paperback:
Finally providing confirmation for what had apparently been the case for awhile, HBO has released the following statement concerning the three locations in which shooting for the second season of Game of Thrones would be taking place:
Two additional locations have been chosen for the second season of the HBO series, Game of Thrones. The production, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will shoot segments of the new season in Croatia and Iceland.
Croatian sites will serve as some of the Southern locations in the series while several scenes “beyond the Wall” will be shot in Iceland.
We’ve previously reported on the shooting locations topic. For those Maltese extras and fans who had hoped to see the production shooting there again, this must be a disappointment, but we know that there’ll be a whole lot of Croatian fans eager to know all about the filming there—much of it centered on scenic medieval city Dubrovnik, where casting for extras is ongoing, according to Dubrovinknet (Croatian).
And another casting surfaces, thanks to the wonders of social media!
German actress Laura Pradelska tweeted the following earlier today:
We’re guessing that that would be the mysterious, masked sorceress Quaithe who is one of several individuals who’ll seek out Daenerys this season.
Pradelska, who’s based in London, had a number of theatre roles to her credit, and below you can see her in a performance of William Whitehurst’s Knuckleball, directed by Andy McQuade:
Each new season is likely to bring not just new actors, but also new directors. Thanks to a sharp-eyed fan, we’ve discovered that actor Forbes KB is listed as playing the part of the famous ironborn warrior Black Lorren... in at least one episode directed by David Petrarca, another in a long list of HBO mainstays. In the last three years, he’s directed HBO episodes almost exclusively, including episodes of Big Love, True Blood, and Boardwalk Empire. He joins Alan Taylor, who was previously announced as directing four episodes for this new season.
Going back to Forbes KB, this character actor has had quite a few roles over the years, and as you can guess by his appearance, he’s often cast as a tough or heavy. He should be just fine as the fierce Black Lorren, a fearless ironborn reaver. Below’s a show reel of the actor:
Roy Dotrice may have been cast as the pyromancer Hallyne in HBO’s Game of Thrones, but for most fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, he’s probably best known as the voice narrating most of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series for Random House’s audiobooks. In the course of that, he’s garnered a Guiness Book of World Records entry. Now, Random House Audio has an interview with the esteemed actor, discussing his work on A Dance with Dragons (which sounds like it may be rewriting that record book), with a few clips of his reading.
Plus, yes, he discusses his role in the TV show!
It sure seems so. There was some surprise here and there on the web when Momoa revealed he had written a treatment for the Conan sequel, which he hoped they would use if to goes ahead. And there was certainly surprise and amusement in the fan community when Momoa made it clear on several occasions that he’d love to return to Game of Thrones, suggesting Drogo could have a twin brother or that magic might somehow be involved.
But did anyone realize that he actually wrote scenes featuring a returned Drogo, which he’s apparently presented to executive producers Benioff and Weiss? Because, according to his interview with NY Magazine’s Vulture site, that’s exactly what he did. Here’s the relevant quote:
I wrote some scenes and they might try to use them. George [R.R. Martin] can only write so much. Something could happen. Drogo could have a twin. You never know.
Got to love his enthusiasm for the show. Speaking of that, he was on Conan O’Brien last night. Here’s an embed of his appearance, where Game of Thrones is mentioned, although much of it is about his soon-in-theaters Conan 3D:
John Hodgman—writer, actor, comedian, and a gentleman who knows everything worth knowing—makes a nod to his George R.R. Martin fandom once again, this time on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Brought in to comment on the challenges of digital distribution for brick-and-mortar bookstores following the bankruptcy of Borders, Hodgman has some… thoughts on steps booksellers might take.
If you’re in the U.S. (and possibly elsewhere, can’t say for sure), here’s the clip from Hulu after the advert:
SF Signal, one of the best blogs keeping a tab on what’s going on in the science fiction genre, has a guest post from Raz Greenberg discussing George R.R. Martin’s proposed Doorways series, which was an original science fiction drama/adventure series that Martin created and executive produced for ABC. They made a pilot which pleased the powers that be… but then the usual story of a change in management meant that it was put on the backburner and, ultimately shelved.
This disappointment wasn’t all bad, though, as it helped fuel part of George’s push to write Avalon... which in turn led to a vivid image of a dead direwolf and her pups, found amidst the summer snow; the rest is history.
Greenberg gives an excellent overview of the history of the project, reviews the pilot episode (which is extremely hard to find—I’ve tried to get a hold of the VHS in Europe and haven’t had much luck), and then discusses the IDW comic book adaptation which was recently collected as a graphic novel (US, UK). Well-worth checking out!
If you’re in New York City, this one’s for you.
Have to love the fans and readers of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, because they keep coming up with amazing ways to share their fandom. The latest?
The Bushwick Book Cub of Brooklyn gathers each month to feature songs inspired by their latest book club selection, written by local songwriters and musicians who perform them at the Goodbye Blue Monday bar. And this month? They’ve been reading, and composing songs for, George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. The club will gather this Thursday at 8PM at Goodbye Blue Monday, and fans of books and music are invited to attend and share in the experience.
Here’s the address:
Goodbye Blue Monday
1087 Broadway (JMZ to Myrtle or J to Kosciusko)
Brooklyn, NY 11221
ph: 718 453 6343
According to organizer Susan Hwang, seven different musical acts are on the slate, including Sweet Soubrette, Dan and Rachel, and Natti Vogel.
Looking forward to seeing pictures and reports from the event!