Westeros

Jim at Darksword Miniatures has just posted the latest miniature in the George R.R. Martin Masterworks series of figures based on A Song of Ice and Fire. The latest entry is Ser Ilyn Payne, the King’s Justice, sculpted by Jeff Grace. It just might give you an idea of what the character may look like when cast for HBO’s Game of Thrones.

We can exclusively confirm via a source at HBO that Conan Stevens, a 7’ tall Australian actor, wrestler, and stuntman, has been cast in the role of Ser Gregor Clegane, the huge and terrible brother of the Hound (played by Rory McCann). Stevens has sought out the role from the very earliest word of HBO developing the series, and has even interacted with fans at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum. Stevens has hinted recently that he had some exciting news to share, and we can certainly agree that this is very exciting!

Here’s a showreel:

Congratulations to Mr. Stevens. We’re looking forward to seeing his considerable presence on screen as the Mountain That Rides.

Screen International, a trade magazine for the film and television industry, has published its annual UK Stars of Tomorrow list (recapped by the London Evening Standard), and who should happen to be there?

Not one, but two of the young actors in HBO’s Game of Thrones. One of them is no great surprise, as Harry Lloyd has gained increasing prominence in the UK over the years and his role as Viserys Targaryen seems like a potential breakthrough into the U.S. The other, however, is none other than Emilia Clarke, the actress recently cast as Daenerys Targaryen. Outside of theatrical roles and a handful of smaller television parts, Clarke is a virtual unknown, but appears to have a great deal of promise in her future according to Screen International.

According to this tweet by actor Oliver Powell (who has previously auditioned for a role, and has mentioned that Westeros.org was one of his resources when researching the role!), the roles of Syrio Forel and Rast (a recruit to the Night’s Watch) have now been filled.

According to Powell, Syrio is played by Miltos Yerolemou, who has appeared in a number of television productions. Searching the internet, Yerolemou has also had a number of theatrical roles, including the role of Feste in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Twelfth Night. Yerolemou confirmed his casting to us when contacted via Twitter, and the part can be seen in his Spotlight CV. Also via Twitter, he tells us that he’d be quite surprised if he were not rendered bald (either by shaving his amazingly curly head of hair, or through prosthetics) for the part, for those who are wondering about the visual fidelity of the series to the novels.

Here’s a fine portrait of the actor, via Flickr:

Perhaps more interestingly, however, we have a Youtube showreel. About 3 minutes in we get past the montage to some selected scenes from theatrical and television roles:

Luke McEwan is a recent Oxford School of Drama graduate, who has received a good deal of praise in the role of Cymbeline in the eponymous play by Shakespeare, for the National Youth Theatre. Rast is one of the less savory of the Night’s Watch recruits that Jon Snow meets early in A Game of Thrones.

As to the third role? EwaSR has shared via Twitter that an acquaintance of hers has landed a role in Game of Thrones. Not as Joffrey—the role he auditioned for, apparently—but for another Lannister part. At a guess, this will be our Lancel Lannister, but we’re waiting on confirmation.

According to this report, John Bradley-West—a recent graduate of the Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Theatre, has been cast in the role of Samwell Tarly. He landed the part as his first audition after graduation, and is set to join the production in mid-August. An earlier report from March noted that Bradley-West was a runner up for the BBC’s Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award which aims to find and develop talented actors for BBC’s radio drama division.

A larger profile picture can be found at the School of Theatre’s Facebook page.

Shire Post Mint, official creators of collectible coins inspired by George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, has reopened its doors. Their online store contains eight different coins, from a brothel token to a silver stag, and there’s interesting discussion behind the origins of the coins drawn from Tom Maringer’s discussions with GRRM.

In the run up to the release of HBO’s Game of Thrones, we’ve previously reported that Bantam Spectra would be republishing the first novel in the series with a new cover. Having spoken with GRRM when the news first came out, he stated that at that time the exact details of the cover had not been hashed out. It seems they’ve concluded that a tie-in cover to the HBO series will indeed be best, according to the spring catalog from Random House (of which Bantam Spectra is a subsidiary). Note that the catalog is quite a massive PDF download.

Thanks to raijap for the tip.

George R.R. Martin shares the news that there’s presently no news as far as casting goes, although offers have been made for a number of roles, “both major and minor”. With any luck, we’ll have news in the coming days. George does discuss the difficulty in casting some other child roles (Mycah, Rickon, Tommen, and Myrcella), stating that children often aren’t capable of really becoming a character as the children currently cast have been. He also remarks on the weirdness of watching audition tapes for Ser Ilyn Payne, the king’s mute headsman, where all the acting is in the face and eyes and body.

GRRM has previously informed us that the role of Gendry—the young, stubborn blacksmith with a heritage he’s unaware of—is among those being cast. Thanks to a tip from Screenterrier, we’ve gotten a bit more detail about the part due to the fact that an “urgent” casting call has gone out for the part, suggesting that the production has yet to find the perfect actor for the role. The desired age of actor is between 16 and 20, and they describe the character as broad-shouldered, muscular, and working class.

The most notable detail for us? They want him for two episodes this season. Some spoilers below the cut as we discuss what that means.

In a new post, GRRM shares some information regarding the state of A Dance with Dragons. The post does contain vague spoilers for both ADwD and the following book, The Winds of Winter, so proceed with caution. Here is the spoilery post.

In brief: in one of his many restructurings of the timeline of events in the novel, he has moved an important event from near the end of the book to the late middle ... and now has moved it back. This has meant that he’s been able to move chapters for a previously-unstated POV character (which he names) to the next book, as well as a partially written chapter and an as-yet-unwritten complimentary POV chapter. It’s quite clear that the timeline of this novel has been a major, major obstacle.

On the downside, for those who want A Dance with Dragons to be extremely long, this shifting of chapters to the next book reduces the length somewhat. On the plus side, he now has some possible chapters done for the next book, and may be that much closer on finishing ADwD ... provided that he doesn’t change his mind again.

It’s no surprise GRRM titled his post, “Dancing in Circles?” Good luck to him sorting out the rest of the niggling details!

The anthology, a tribute to Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, has received several nominations in genre awards. Although it did not win the 2010 Locus Awards (instead, The New Space Opera , also edited by Gardner Dozois with Jonathan Strahan, won), a short story from the anthology did win in its category: Neil Gaiman’s “An Invocation of Incuriousity”, which had pride of place as the final story in the anthology.

Congratulations to Mr. Gaiman, and our thanks to Martin and Dozois for commissioning the story, which really was an exceptional closer to the anthology.

Fantasy Flight Games, who in 2005 published the now hard-to-find The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, are at it again with an announcement that they’ll be publishing a second edition, indicating that it is a “revised, edited, and updated” edition. Moreover, they’ve indicated its the first volume in a potential series of further volumes, drawing from their vast catalog of art from their various A Song of Ice and Fire games.

No explicit release date is given, but sometime this autumn seems to be the plan.

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Spectra, Suvudu.com is hosting write-ups concerning novels published in each of the 25 years. So far, two have been devoted to Anne Groell—editor on A Song of Ice and Fire (and editor of The World of Ice and Fire)—as she recalls details about the publication of A Game of Thrones and the story behind the cover for A Clash of Kings. In the first post, she also notes that she believes A Dance with Dragons is very close to completion, although the publisher has been wrong about this before.

For those curious about the first Stephen Youll cover that Groell mentions, besides ARCs, the cover was used on the first Swedish edition of A Game of Thrones.  George has the cover in his gallery.

A leading, award winning genre artist, John Picacio is the subject of an audio interview from The Functional Nerds, conducted by Patrick Hester and John Anealio. It’s a long and fascinating interview covering many topics, from inspiration to technique to current projects. Among those projects? The 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar, which Picacio mentions as one of his ongoing projects in the course of the interview.

He offers the following tidbit regarding the calendar, at the 73 minute mark: he’s currently painting Jaime Lannister.

It’s an eventful day, it seems, as GRRM informs us that Paul Engelen, a multiple Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominee, has been hired to lead hair and makeup design for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Engelen has an extensive list of credits stretching almost 40 years, and include such major work as Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, and Robin Hood: