Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin runs through several of the actors cast in roles related to the Vale of Arryn—Lysa Arryn, Robin Arryn, and Ser Vardis Egen. More notably, he touches on the fate of Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish. George explains it best, so we’ll quote him:
“... alas, his appearance has been postponed. Even with such a huge project as ours, there are budgetary constraints that require some characters to be cut, combined… or deferred to later seasons. That’s what is happening with the Blackfish. The plan, I am told, is to delay the introduction of the Tullys (Lord Hoster and Ser Edmure as well as Ser Brynden) until the second season. Brynden’s part in the events of A GAME OF THRONES will be filled in part by Ser Vardis Egen, and in part by Ser Rodrik Cassel.”
So, if the show gets a second season, we’ll be seeing the rest of the Tully clan.
Via GRRM, we learn that Green Ronin—producers of A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying—have had an adventure for the system, Peril in King’s Landing, nominated for an eNnie Award. The award, one of the more prestigious in the RPG community, has an open ballot and anyone may vote.
Green Ronin also reports that the pocket version of the SOIF RPG is at the printers, so it should debut in time for GenCon.
Valyrian Steel, official producers of replica weapons based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, have a lengthy update regarding one particular product, the “live steel”, Damascus version of Longclaw. Unfortunately, the manufacturer that they are using has bitten off more than they could chew, according to Valyrian Steel, and have been unable to meet the production schedule. In fact, the manufacturer is swearing off taking any more Damascus steel orders from Valyrian Steel, although it’s suggested this may be nothing more than a negotiating tactic.
The result of all this? The delays for fulfilling Damascus steel Longclaw orders will be partially rectified by a partial order fulfillment for those with the earliest pre-orders, with the rest of the orders filled when they finally receive the rest of the ordered blades. It also means that their plan—to release their replica of Ice in both standard and Damascus versions simultaneously—likely will have to be scrapped, but they are looking into alternatives. Preorders for the regular production run of Ice (and photos of the weapon) should be available in late August, while they also report that they’ve sent their design for their next weapon—King Robert’s famous warhammer—on to GRRM for approval.
With an entry titled, “Snowbound”, GRRM hints that he’s on a writing roll with A Dance with Dragons, writing what seems to be a Jon Snow-centered chapter. He mentions that “Pat” has died a brief but gruesome death, a reference to a character named after blog reviewer, Patrick St-Denis, who won the opportunity to have a character named after him (and promptly die a horrible death) over a football wager.
It looks like some blood will be spilled, late in Jon Snow’s ADwD chapters.
As we recently learned, Castle Black was set to be built at Magheramorne Quarry. Now, a fellow fan by the handle of silverjaime has shared the first photos of the site, taken about a mile away from the building site (the nearest the public can get to it). The first picture is here, while a zoomed and cropped version can be found here. It looks like the quarry wall will serve as the Wall, either colored to look more like ice in CG, or perhaps used as a base on which to lay greenscreen.
Silverjaime also visited the Paint Hall area, and fell into discussion with the dialect coach for the production, Brendan Gunn. Gunn informed her that while the production would us “UK accents”, he did not provide details of whether there’d be regional variations other than to confirm that Aidan Gillen (cast as Littlefinger) would not use his native, Dubin accent. Gunn has previously worked on a very large number of films, including Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy, Meet Joe Black, and Snatch (where he helped Brad Pitt develop his Tinker accent). He also happens to have served as the dialogue coach for A Shine of Rainbows, a film which featured Jack Gleeson, cast as Joffrey Baratheon.
A video of Gunn discussing the dialects of A Shine of Rainbows is embedded below:
Avatar Press has just published George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream #4 to comic shops. The adaption of Martin’s award-winning horror novel, by novelist Daniel Abraham and artist Rafa Lopez, at present appears to be on a bi-monthly schedule, making it great, brisk read. Below is a preview of the fourth issue:
Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin responds to a query regarding a potential composer for the HBO adaption of Game of Thrones. What GRRM indicates is that the production team has already narrowed down the list of candidates for the job and have interviewed the leading contenders, and that no new names are going to be looked at. Which suggests to us that the decision is probably quite imminent, presumably with an eye towards having the composer start his or her work as soon as possible.
George says he has his own favorite among the leading candidates, but we shall see what develops.
Following up on our previous report, we’re happy to see George confirm that actress Natalia Tena has won the role of Osha. As George writes: “When I saw that she was reading for Osha, my first thought was, “She’s great, but no way, she’s too young and too hot.” Then I saw her reading, and none of the other Oshas had a chance. Her charisma grabbed me by the throat and I could not take my eyes off her. David and Dan felt the same way. We’re all thrilled to have her.”
It sounds like an auspicious start to her time in the series!
Wow. Double wow, actually. We’ve been amazed and delighted with the casting, production, and writing team ... but this is the first time we’ve had our jaws drop.
From a tweet by Miltos Yerolemou, we discover that the legendary fight choreographer (this is not an exaggeration), William Hobbs, has been training Miltos ahead of his role as the Braavosi waterdancer Syrio Forel, formerly First Sword for the Sealord of Braavos. Hobbs has been responsible for just about every memorable fencing duel on stage and screen for 30 years. Memorable examples? Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, The Duellists, and especially Rob Roy, as well as the award-winning stage production of Hamlet from 1995 which won notice from the New York Times and led to a profile of the fight choreographer.
What’s most noticeable is that Hobbs has no professional TV/Film credits these last 5 years, so his involvement in the background of Game of Thrones is a remarkable coup.
Below, we leave you with a video featuring what I consider to be the very finest duel ever put to film, from the finale of Rob Roy:
GRRM’s latest clue seems to have gone up within moments of the deal being signed on the dotted line. He writes that this “wildling wench” is known both to Arthur and Morgana, that she’s not met Theon’s sister in the books (“yet”) but that she has in real life, and that both the actress and the character have “made a splash”.
The Rabbit01 seems to have cracked it, noting that Natalia Tena—best known for her role as Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter films—has worked in productions with both Jamie Campbell Bower (King Arthur in Starz’s new series, Camelot, which led to Bower’s part in Game of Thrones recast) and Eva Green (Morgana in the same Starz production). Furthermore, Tena was at boarding school with singer-songwriter Lily Allen, the famous sister to Alfie Owen Allen, the actor cast as Theon (and recently confirmed to still hold the part in the fact sheet).
But the splash? Well, Osha did splash about in Winterfell’s hotsprings ... and as it happened, Tena made her own splash according to the Daily Mail, when she went skinnydipping in the middle of a crowded music festival. The same article mentions her connection to Lily Allen, which suggests to us that this article served as the source for two of the clues GRRM provided.
That seems to be much too perfect, so we’re going to endorse The Rabbit’s guess. We’ll update when/if GRRM confirms.
The fact sheet has quite a lot to absorb, so here’s the highlights in terms of new actors and crew that we’ve not heard of before today.
Lets start with new crew. First up, two new directors of photography have been named. Marco Pontecorvo and Alik Sakharov are both veterans of past HBO productions, particularly Rome. Pontecorvo recently made a mark as a director for the film Pa-ra-da, which garnered him several awards as well, while the Russian-born Sakharov received an Emmy for his cinemtaography on during the Rome episode titled “Passover”.
Joining them on the production side are a few new directors. For us, the most notable is Alan Taylor, an HBO go-to guy with many HBO productions under his belt, as well episodes of shows as diverse as Lost, Mad Men, and Nurse Jackie; he won an Emmy for his direction of a Sopranos episode, and has several other noms from the Director’s Guild Awards. The other new director named is Daniel Minahan, another go-to guy who’s directed episodes of Deadwood, Big Love, and a notable five episodes on True Blood.
Production designer Gemma Jackson and costume designer Michele Clapton remain on board with the production, which is very good to see. Though we’ve known this for a good while, I’ll note that the fact sheet confirms that the writing breakdown remains the same: executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will write seven of the episodes, while Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson (of Buffy and BSG fame), and George R.R. Martin will write one episode each.
Of note for the production? Morocco is out—something George hinted may be a possibility a long while ago—and instead it looks like the second location for shooting will be Malta. Malta, rich in scenery—especially medieval castles, walls, ports, and so on—and a spare beauty will doubtless serve for shots of Pentos and the like, and will be an excellent locale if the series goes forward to a second or third season
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And following the production teams and notes? The actors. Oh, boy, the actors. There’s so many of them!
The most significant additions to the list must be James Cosmo as the Old Bear, Jeor Mormont, a casting George revealed which is not yet on the fact sheet (see here for two other roles GRRM has confirmed). After that, it sure looks like Jerome Flynn as Bronn (Official Site) is the most noteworthy casting choice.
After that are the guest cast, which makes up the bulk of new additions to the casting rolls. I’m just going to paste them all below:
James Cosmo has been cast in the role of Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, according to GRRM’s latest post after someone finally got his devious clue (after he helpfully provided a hint). Cosmo is well-known to fans of genre film due to his memorable role in Braveheart as Campbell, the irascible, tough-as-nails father of Brendan Gleeson’s character. George says that Cosmo blew away the competition in his reading.
Keep an eye here, we’ll soon be covering all the new actors released in some more detail! To tide you over, here’s a show reel of Mr. Cosmo:
HBO has released a massive fact sheet, full of casting information for lesser parts. The content of the sheet follows below. Keep an eye on this page later on the day, as we link up all the actors we can to IMDB pages, official sites, and/or videos.
George has posted that fans have guessed some of his clues, but one remains elusive.
As per our previous post, our endorsement of the guess of Derek Halligan for Ser Alliser Thorne is correct; good job, Mormegil99! You can learn more about Halligan at Ulster Actors. The other clue, the lord who never had lines in the books, will be played by Sir John Standing, who played one of the leads in the adaption of GRRM’s novella, Nightflyers, more than 20 years ago.
GRRM promises many more roles to be announced shortly—we expect some news today—and hints that “maybe even a big one that you have all been eager for” will also be revealed in time.
Below is a video of Sir John conducting a public reading:
Publisher Focus Home Interactive and developer Cyanide has sent out a press release with the first title and first details of their A Song of Ice and Fire-based RTS game, A Game of Thrones: Genesis. Cyanide has licensed the rights from George R.R. Martin for two games, the aforementioned Genesis as well as a title-yet-unannounced RPG. The presskit attached to the release includes two pieces of original art, both featuring beautifully moody depictions of Castle Black, and the official logo title.
The full text of the release is below: