The A Song of Ice and Fire forum and the Wiki of Ice and Fire are up and running on our new server; response-times should generally be faster. Those who can’t get there just now need to wait for DNS information to propagate (which can take as much as 24 hours). If after that time you are still unable to reach the site, do please let us know via our e-mail address.
A misunderstanding on our part got the time of the website move wrong by about twelve hours. The wiki and forum have now been moved. However, for some people it seems that the site appears to be down or not available, while others are seeing it just fine (with some minor issues). We have mailed our server admin, but she’s probably in bed now, so it may be awhile before the issues are corrected. Please keep an eye on the updates page for further news.
Via Twitter, we learn that the Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa has been cast in the part of Khal Drogo. He announced that he had just learned he had landed the role at the Armageddon Pop Culture Expo in Australia. He indicates that at the audition, he performed a haka war-dance as part of his audition, he said, and then apparently showed off his backside to the audience in preparation for further nudity in the pilot, which would mark both his first nude scene and his first sex scene as an actor. He also apparently mentioned disliking horses, and not really looking forward to the riding scene the pilot requires (much less the rest of the riding scenes that will be required if the show goes forward).
It seems possible that the spread of the news has led to his official website running into occasional capacity issues. Some photos from a panel Momoa took part in at this summer’s past Dragon*Con can be found at ]his official site forum.
As George R.R. Martin stated earlier, Drogo was the last significant role to be cast in HBO’s pilot for Game of Thrones.
From Your Industry Insider, we’ve learned that Julia Frey is involved in the production of HBO’s pilot for Game of Thrones. Listed as a VFX producer, she has taken part in location scouting and has chronicled the result of location scouting in Morocco and Scotland at her blog (1, 2, 3 [Pages have since been removed and are no longer available at the site.])
She’s currently in Belfast. One of the most interesting details is that it seems Doune Castle in Scotland has been selected as one shooting location. See our earlier post concerning the “Combat International” fight team that is being brought in to a Scottish castle for the filming.
Tomorrow (the 17th) the A Song of Ice and Fire forum and the Wiki of Ice and Fire will go offline so that they can be moved to a new, much more powerful server. This will probably not happen before 3-5 PM Eastern Standard Time. The down time could extend through the next day if problems ensue, but hopefully there will be no issues.
George R. R. Martin’s official site has a new post on “Not a Blog”, concerning his forthcoming travels which begin with a trip to Fargo for a convention this weekend, followed by his flight out to the U.K. two days after he returns from the event. He is looking forward to seeing Marrakesh after the Irish leg of his production visit. He also notes that he’ll be away from football much of that time, and expects to be back home sometime around Thanksgiving.
Thanks to Louie Pastore, an expert in medieval and Scottish martial arts, we’ve learned that he’ll be involved as part of a fight team for scenes being filmed at a Scottish castle for HBO’s pilot episode of Game of Thrones. This is being done through the auspices of the Clanranald Trust, an organization dedicated to preserving and reenacting Scottish historic culture. The trust has formed “Combat International” to provide fight-teams to productions. Members have been involved in noteworthy films such as Gladiator, King Arthur, and Ridley Scott’s upcoming Robin Hood, and are now adding Game of Thrones to the list.
We’ve mentioned GRRM’s latest clues for casting of HBO’s Game of Thrones pilot briefly, but we’d be remiss not to share the exact text and some of the speculations that have followed.
Valyrian Steel has just announced that their very limited Damascus steel-reproduction of Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw, can now be preordered. The sword will not be ready for shipment some time until 2010. No more than 100 or 250 of the swords will be produced.
Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune confirms the casting of Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran Stark. A child actor associated with the Kent Youth Theatre, Bran is one of the last outstanding roles remaining to be cast. Ryan adds that filming begins the 24th with Scotland and Morocco as additional locations, and the fact that the role of Khal Drogo is not yet cast.
George R.R. Martin adds a confirmation of Drogo not being cast in his remarks, and teases that the “gray man” (Maester Luwin) once had groupies, suggesting the actor may once have been a musician.
It seems a number of the actors who are confirmed or suspected to be cast—Jennifer Ehle, Esmé Bianco whose role as “Ros” (formerly “Red Headed Whore”) GRRM has confirmed in e-mail, and Jamie Campbell Bower who many believe is playing Waymar Royce—are travelling to Belfast in connection to the production. In fact, Campbell Bower has already returned from Belfast, indicating he had a “good readthrough” in a tweet. This suggests that much of the activity has to do with preliminary read-throughs of the pilot script by the various members of the cast, and possibly other production-related activities such as costume fittings.
Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute to Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, featuring stories from twenty-one top-flight fantasy and science fiction authors (not only GRRM, but Neil Gaiman, Dan Simmons, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Robert Silverberg, and many more), is now being published in the U.K. by HarperCollins. The limited run Subterranean Press edition being quite sold out, this is a great chance to read these wonderful, colorful stories and the afterwords in which each author shares their appreciation for Vance and his work.
Following GRRM’s most recent clues, fans scoured the Internet to try and figure them out. Now one of them has been found for certain, as the actress Esmé Bianco—burlesque and cabaret performance, singing, and modelling are among her other activities—has the news up on her official website.
For those wondering what guesses are for the other two parts, Jamie Campbell Bower, who is involved in the most recent Twilight and Harry Potter adaptions, seems surest as Ser Waymar Royce. The third role, the one GRRM said no one would guess, seems to have been cracked by Paul Gude and the rest of the sleuths over at Winter is Coming seems to have cracked it: Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran Stark, who is a member of the Kent Youth Theater where the news ticker is presently congratulating him for a “role in a new series”. A photo can be found at the WiC site, and more can be seen at the Kent Youth Theater page such as this one (scroll down a bit).
In comments to his latest post, GRRM provides some details concerning the remaining speaking roles left to be cast, the writing out of a minor part, and a list of non-speaking roles or features extras that are set to appear in the pilot:
On the heels of his most recent post, GRRM now provides more hints for three actors who have not been previously announced in roles. These are particularly befuddling, to say the least.