Casting news from the TV series

I'm still undecided about how I feel about having a TV adaptation in general, but man, the casting is freaking fantastic. Between the ones I know, and googling the ones I don't, it's actually got me pretty excited.

And I don't get excited about much.
 
GRRM has announced:

Emun Elliott will play Marillion
Peter Vaughan will play Maester Aemon
Margaret John will play Old Nan
Natalia Tena will play Osha (not even close to how I pictured Osha but they can do magic with makeup)
 
Culhwch said:
Makes sense. There's a few too many characters of the same name in the books, easier to keep it straight on film if they alter them slightly. Still a little disappointing and detracting from the source material, though, I feel...
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Agreed with the Champ. :D

In fact, even changing his name to Robin has eliminated an, albeit very small, nuance from the book. Namely that when Lysa is first introduced, she says Jon Arryn spoke Robert's name as he lay dying, followed by "the Seed is strong". Lysa took him to mean their son, whereas, of course, Jon was talking of King Robert and the Lannister children.

I expect a lot of that sort of minutae will be lost.
 
In fact, even changing his name to Robin has eliminated an, albeit very small, nuance from the book. Namely that when Lysa is first introduced, she says Jon Arryn spoke Robert's name as he lay dying, followed by "the Seed is strong". Lysa took him to mean their son, whereas, of course, Jon was talking of King Robert and the Lannister children.
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Maybe he just said 'Rob', 'Robbo', or 'Robbykins'.
 
I am sooo looking forward to this show - and I only discovered the books a few months ago (I initially dismissed ASOIAF as just another fat fantasy epic - doh!), so I can scarcely imagine how stoked the long-time fans are!

Re the number of characters, they have to have names in the book and we have to remember them to keep them separate in our heads, but TV has the huge advantage that you can put names to faces. Most viewers will not care about the minor characters' names - they'll just be "hey, that guy with the sword is half of 'Robson and Jerome'" or whatever :)

My favourite bit from the BBC Belfast website:

The demand for suitably hairy extras was so great that some had to be recruited from local heavy metal message boards.
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I guess it's cheaper than hiring battalions of makeup artists armed with false beards!
 
*ahem* BBC Northern Ireland :p (not just Belfast)

they were also looking for swarthy experienced horseriders.

My colleague is currently trying to grow a beard for his guarding role :D
 
Anne Lyle said:
I am sooo looking forward to this show - and I only discovered the books a few months ago (I initially dismissed ASOIAF as just another fat fantasy epic - doh!), so I can scarcely imagine how stoked the long-time fans are!

Re the number of characters, they have to have names in the book and we have to remember them to keep them separate in our heads, but TV has the huge advantage that you can put names to faces. Most viewers will not care about the minor characters' names - they'll just be "hey, that guy with the sword is half of 'Robson and Jerome'" or whatever :)

My favourite bit from the BBC Belfast website:

I guess it's cheaper than hiring battalions of makeup artists armed with false beards!
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I share your opinion. I don't think I had a real handle on who everyone was until I was halfway through AGOT. Keep in mind that I had the advantage of listening to the audiobooks, so at least there was a voice to pair with a name. I don't think I really "got" all the connections until my first re-read. I certainly didn't begin to catch many of the plot nuances until then.

Welcome to our little corner of Chrons. Hope to see you posting more :)
 
The Imp said:
Welcome to our little corner of Chrons. Hope to see you posting more :)
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Thanks - and I'm sure I shall!

I have AGOT in ebook format as well as paperback - it was required reading for the novel revision course I'm doing, so I bought the electronic version only to find I needed to be able to flip back to earlier chapters, or to the character list at the end, in order to follow everything. That's one thing that ebooks are still way too slow to do effectively, so I had to buy the dead-trees version...

Sorry, a bit off topic there! I'm following the casting news with great interest, being a rabid IMDB fan since around 1999, when there were very few TV shows in the database (I think I even submitted the odd factoid myself). No offence to our US friends, but it's good to see a mainly British cast. American accents and medievalism just don't go together in my mind - perhaps you can blame Tony Curtis in 1950s swashbuckler "The Black Shield of Falworth" for that :)
 
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Welcome, Anne.

Be careful, though: Here be spoilers!





("Here" being the GRRM threads.)
 
Anne, where exactly are you in the books? Have you completed them yet? If not...................?
 
The Imp said:
Anne, where exactly are you in the books? Have you completed them yet? If not...................?
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I've only read AGOT, because I'm still knee-deep in novel revisions - I've promised myself I'll buy and read ACOK when I'm done. I may have to re-read AGOT first, though, because I read it quite quickly for the course work and need a refresher on who's who.

Trying to keep abreast of the HBO news without too many spoilers is not easy!!
 
Anne Lyle said:
I've only read AGOT, because I'm still knee-deep in novel revisions - I've promised myself I'll buy and read ACOK when I'm done. I may have to re-read AGOT first, though, because I read it quite quickly for the course work and need a refresher on who's who.

Trying to keep abreast of the HBO news without too many spoilers is not easy!!
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I've not seen any potential spoiler material in any of the HBO related things scattered about the web. That's not to say that they aren't there are won't be in the future. Do be extra careful on these boards though. People are usually good about warning of spoilers, but you never know :) Re-reading AGOT wouldn't be a bad thing given you kind of "skimmed" it first go round.

Keep us abreast of your progress please.
 
Scottish actress Kate Dickie has been cast as Lysa Arryn

Lino Facioli will play Robin Arryn

Ser Vardis Egen will be played by Brendan McCormack

Mord (the Eyrie's goaler) will be played by Ciaran Bermingham
 
A Bermingham accent in the Vale, eh? ;):)









(How apt: the Vale is at a more southerly latitude than Beanshire.)
 
Anne, make sure you have your blinkers on. People might post something on here without even thinking, assuming everyone has read all the books. Even in this thread.... Don't read any other threads.... I'm with Imp, be extra careful.

P.S. Hurry up and read the rest of the books so we can all put spoilers up...
 
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