But not for HBO’s Game of Thrones. In fact, Sean Bean is the lead in a new action/thriller film Cleanskin, which is filming in London as we type this. According to ITN, which provides a photo & brief video interview of the actor in his current look, the film will be shooting for the next six week.
(Note: See our update which, thanks to a commenter at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum, shows that this was a single day reshoot for a film that was completed in the spring.)
This fits with the news that much of the Winterfell footage is waiting until September to be filmed. Given that we had reports of Bean being available the first week or two of shooting, we suppose that they’ve done some work with him, but not a lot. The bulk of his scenes as Eddard Stark—both in Winterfell and King’s Landing—will have to be filmed at the end of September and right through to December, when filming is scheduled to end.
Fantasy Flight Game’s new tactical wargame, Battles of Westeros, has been on shelves a few weeks now, and the reviews so far seem very positive. We’ve come across a new one from Games Paradise Online which is particularly insightful. For one thing, we hadn’t realized just how well the plastic miniatures can paint up—wow!
The first expansion, Wardens of the West, will be available in the next month or so according to Amazon. FFG has also announced the second expansion in the series, Wardens of the North, focusing on the Starks.
Just a few bits and bobs of information regarding HBO’s Game of Thrones production, for those who’re interested in the nuts-and-bolts.
I’ve only been and filmed a single episode so far, and I haven’t met Sean Bean. He’s in another part of the storyline than the one I’m in. He’s mostly filming in Ireland, while the storyline I’m part of is filming in Malta. There’s a lot of established as well as fresh actors involved, and the sets are really huge.
Given that she says she’s filmed, it seems fair to say that the majority of her scenes will be in Malta, but there are some things (interiors, primarily, we expect) that are being or will be filmed in Northern Ireland.
After a couple of hours of sweating over the clues, GRRM confirmed his clues. First, he confirmed that Elyas Gabel—who’s been in Waterloo Road, Casualty, Apparitions, and was a zombie in Dead Set—has been cast in the role of Jhogo, one of Daenerys Targaryen’s kas, her personal guard of Dothraki warriors (the three other guards will be played by extras or featured extras, at least in this season). Then, as we guessed, actor Joe Dempsie has been cast in the role of Gendry, a young, stubborn blacksmith.
Below are two videos featuring the actors:
Just a quick note, amidst all the clue pondering. Source’s close to the production have confirmed something that was rumored earlier, based on an errant IMDB entry: Danish actor Dar Salim has indeed been cast in the role of Qotho, one of Drogo’s three bloodriders, his closest and most loyal bodyguards. Salim’s appeared in a number of Danish and Scandinavian productions, and is particularly noted for his role as the titualar character of Go In Peace, Jamil!, a Shiite Muslim in Denmark on the run after committing a murder to avenge his mother’s death years earlier:
This makes us wonder if the “bloody bowman” of the clue might not be another Dothraki, in this case Daenerys’s guard Aggo, who receives a bow from her…
Another set of clues for two characters at “Not a Blog”:
“The bloody lash knows what it’s like to be dead. He’s met his waterloo and been a casualty, and seen his share of apparitions too. The horny-headed hammerhand is older than you might have thought, but too young to need a pacemaker, though he might have ridden on the ferry with Gerry. Another friend of our kraken’s sister, he knows the doctor and the wizard too. Damned if he doesn’t play what he calls football (not the real kind).”
After correcting the initial clue from bowman to lash, it’s clear that the first clue is for Jhogo, one of Daenerys’s young Dothraki guards. The other must be for Gendry, and we’ve tenatively identified Joseph Dempsie as a candidate (he’s rather older than Gendry as described in the books, appeared on Lily Allen and Friends, has been both on Doctor Who and Merlin, has appeared as a footballer in The Damned United, and hails from Merseyside, inspiration for the Gerry & the Pacemakers song, “Ferry Cross to Mersey”).
We noticed that Time Warner (corporate parent of HBO) has a regular corporate newsletter. Digging into the latest edition, we see that Game of Thrones is mentioned as definitely airing on one of Sky’s channels, along with Boardwalk Empire (which will be the show that launches the new deal), Luck, and other current series such as Entourage once their current broadcast right agreements run out.
After having posted about HIlario Abad’s orchestral score inspired by A Game of Thrones, the composer contacted us to share the exciting news that his score will be adapted to be performed by a live concert band. Musician and conductor Diego Palma will carry out the adaption.
Although the score is intended for a full orchestra, for this adaption the strings and choir passages will be adapted to woodwinds and percussion.
George R.R. Martin’s has been updated with a brand new Wild Cards sample, from the upcoming book, Fort Freak. Written by Cherie Priest, the excerpt features the first few pages of her entry, “The Rat Race”.
We’ve reported in the past on various musical acts and songs inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire—including the heavy metal band Winterfell, and songs from fellow metal bands Hammerfall and (most recently) Blind Guardian—and just yesterday came across the very first Ice and Fire hip-hop that I’m aware of. Now, there’s something else: pieces of a proposed traditional score for the first novel A Game of Thrones which is currently being adapted to series by HBO.
Aspiring Spanish composer Hilario Abad brought his work to our attention, and we have to say, we’re quite impressed. There are three extended snippets, covering a main theme, plus music for two important sequences in the novel. It’d be interesting to hear what this would sound like with a full orchestra.
Conan Stevens (Twitter) has put up a new blog post regarding his experience as part of the Game of Thrones production. He starts by showing off Dark Sword Miniatures‘s Gregor Clegane figure, and the fact that George R.R. Martin congratulated him by e-mail and offered to send him one of the figures. He also notes he had to pass up a chance to take a drink with Sean Bean, and saw but was not introduced to Peter Dinklage.
In production news, Conan notes how much work he’s been putting into riding, having flown to the U.K. to receive his training. As we noticed yesterday on Twitter, he ran into actor Finn Jones (cast as Ser Loras Tyrell) while there. He’s had some riding experience in the past, and says he’s picking it up, with his goal being getting the horse up to a steady gallop by the end of the week. Of particular interest is his plan to slim down so he can get the full six-pack going, both for professional and personal reasons. But in the course of it he notes that he wants to do this “before I go home by the end of the month”. This lets us know that Conan’s first scenes will be filming in August.
At a guess, the rest of his scenes will be filmed in the Fall.
Having been busy with writing A Dance with Dragons, George has finally gotten around to writing a few words about several of the actors cast in roles. First, and most significantly, is Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister. As we exclusively revealed, Dance was always the #1 choice of the producers right from the time they got the greenlight, and George now confirms this. He also discusses Conan Stevens, cast as Gregor Clegane, noting that he first came to his attention when he auditioned first auditioned as Khal Drogo which Stevens revealed was a strategy for getting in front of the casting director in the hope that they’d keep him in mind for the Mountain that Rides.
Finally, GRRM discusses young actor Eugene Simon, cast in the role of Lancel Lannister. One of King Robert’s two squires in the novel, the other, his cousin Tyrek, will not be cast (at least not in this first season).
There is an interesting note for followers of progress on HBO’s Game of Thrones series in his post announcing his cancelling an appearance at New York Comic Con.
Besides noting he plans to visit Belfast (main location for shooting of the series) after attending Octocon in Dublin, he notes the possibility that he’ll also visit Malta (site of location shoots for many of the scenes set in Pentos and regions east). As Octocon takes place in mid-October, it seems like the Malta location shooting will cover the bulk of that month and a good part of September as well. As we’ve previously reported, the Malta shoot has been stated to take six weeks. Mid-September through the end of October seems likely now.
George R.R. Martin has posted that his tentative plan to attend New York Comic Con has been cancelled, explaining that the chief reason is that his schedule is already busy with two international trips he’s been committed to attending for years (AussieCon4 at the start of September and then Octocon in mid-October); squeezing the trip to New York in between the two would be difficult as he continues work towards completing A Dance with Dragons.
He leaves open the possibility of visiting New York in February, perhaps in connection to the Boskone convention.
George R.R. Martin has given another update to his progress on A Dance with Dragons, noting that he’s completed the final chapter in the book for the character he dubs “Yogi” (continuing a trend of giving pseudonyms to characters). It seems this character is connected to the Mereenese Knot, which he describes as “now hanging by a thread”. This is a total of eight character perpspectives completed, not counting the prologue and epilogue, but there are a few characters remaining never the less (including Jon Snow, and the character named “Fred” that he’s mentioned previously).