Roles filled, offered, and scrapped in A Game of Thrones pilot, and GRRM still has problems with Meereenese knots

George R. R. Martin posted a lot in one go on his LiveJournal this morning (or evening, depending where you live), including some news about the HBO A Game of Thrones pilot and A Dance with Dragons.

HBO Pilot: D&D have cast one more role and have an offer out to a wonderful actor on another. Sorry, no clues, I’m clued out for the present. One of the roles that was yet to be filled has been written out of the pilot. No huge thing, he wasn’t in that part of the book in any case… though we did have a world-class thespian lined up to play the part. Character and actor will both be back if we go to series.

Drat, no clues? Great, now we have to wait a while for official announcements. Pfft.

And I wonder which role was taken out of the pilot…based on what I know about the pilot’s script and the book, it could be Grand Maester Pycelle. According to the script, he’s supposed to be talking to Cersei in the scene where Jon Arryn lies on his deathbed, but that was never shown in the book.

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS: I took a good hard swack at the Meereenese knot. The sword bounced off and cut my nose off. Bugger.

GRRM has been stuck with “the Meereenese knot” for a long while now, so I guess it’s safe to say that he’s suffering from a writer’s block. And based on the way he described it, this one seems more painful than writer’s blocks usually are. Ouch.

Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister in HBO’s A Game of Thrones Pilot

Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune’s The Watcher has revealed that Lena Headey, known for portraying Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Queen Gorgo in 300, has been cast as Cersei Lannister in HBO’s A Game of Thrones pilot.

George R. R. Martin is pleased about Headey being cast, saying that “Her range was one of the things that impressed us most about her; Cersei is a character with many colors, and Lena will be able to give us all of them. Her readings were wonderful… and of course she’s beautiful and sexy as hell.”

I’m in awe right now. Like Sean Bean, Headey wasn’t one of the first people I thought of as cast members for AGOT, but now that they’ve cast her, I think she’s a great choice for the role. I’m still a bit worried about her looks-wise since she’s usually shown as a brunette and her skin’s a bit tan compared to the image of Cersei I had in my mind, but as GRRM himself said: “Yes, it’s true, she’s not a blonde, but she has played one on TV (and in films). Seriously, guys. This is HBO. They know about wigs and hair dyes and stuff like that.”

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Image taken from Starpulse.com.

New players in HBO’s A Game of Thrones finally announced

Oh wow, I’m busy for a few days and I look what I’ve missed:

“In the adaptation of the George R.R. Martin fantasy-book series, [Nikolaj] Coster-Waldau will play Jaime Lannister, one of the king’s guards and a ruthless usurper of the previous king. The actor, most recently seen in Ron Moore’s Fox pilot ‘Virtuality,’ is repped by WME, Impression and Independent Talent Group.

Another addition is Tamzin Merchant (Showtime’s ‘The Tudors’), who’ll play Daenerys, an exiled teenage princess.

Also new to the cast: Richard Madden (‘Hope Springs’) as Stark’s eldest son, Robb; Iain Glen (‘Into the Storm’) as Ser Jorah Mormont, a disgraced knight; Alfie Allen (‘The Other Boleyn Girl’) as Theon, Stark’s young ward; Sophie Turner (‘Doctor Who’), as Stark’s eldest daughter, Sansa; Maisie Williams as Stark’s young tomboy daughter, Arya.” – The Hollywood Reporter

I always knew at least one actor/actress would spill over from The Tudors into A Game of Thrones; looks like I was right since Tamzin Merchant made it into the AGoT cast. She certainly looks the part, in my opinion. I never imagined Dany to be your stereotypical beautiful princess; I always imagined her to look beautiful in a weird, otherworld-y sort of way, and Merchant fits that description.

Looks-wise, I’m not so happy with the actor starring as Theon. I always imagined Theon as a younger Jonathan Rhys Myers, and Alfie Allen certainly doesn’t look like that. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how he acts and how he looks with make-up and costume on, as GRRM seems pleased with the casting (check out his multiple entries with comments on the actors on his LJ).

Here’s a list of all the currently confirmed cast members with links to web pages with pictures and/or info on them (mind you, a lot of these actors don’t have a lot of pictures on the internet and I just worked around what I could find):

• Sean Bean as Lord Eddard Stark
• Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister
• Mark Addy as King Robert Baratheon I
• Jack Gleeson as Joffrey Baratheon
• Harry Lloyd as Viserys Targaryen
• Kit Harington as Jon Snow
• Richard Madden as Robb Stark
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister
• Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys “Dany” Targaryen
• Iain Glen as Jorah Mormont
• Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy
• Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark
• Maisie Williams as Arya Stark

George R. R. Martin drops hints about unrevealed cast roles

While George R. R. Martin, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss cannot reveal the five newly-cast roles in HBO’s A Game of Thrones pilot, Martin mentioned (at the Montreal Worldcon) that the roles of Theon Greyjoy and Jaime Lannister have already been filled, and even dropped a few hints about the three other filled roles in his LJ:

“The five roles… well, we have cast Jaime Lannister and Theon Greyjoy, I let that slip in Montreal… the three new ones are all females. A couple small roles, but very important ones. One player has something in common with Ned. One has something in common with Harry Potter. One is not a boney pop singer. Shows can get cancelled and so can characters, but two of them have been seen on American tv recently.”

Huzzah for more female characters! So far the only female character that’s been cast is Catelyn Stark, so I’m excited about this news. I can’t seem to put my finger on who these characters might be though; I guess I’ll just have to wait for the official announcements.

UPDATE: Martin just posted on his LJ that one more role has been cast, but that he can’t talk about it either.

George R. R. Martin at Montreal Worldcon

Matthew Surridge of Montreal Gazette interviewed George R. R. Martin at the Anticipation, the 67th Worldcon, and an mp3 file of the interview is available here. He and Martin talk about A Dance with Dragons, the HBO Game of Thrones pilot, and Martin’s career in general.

Fans who are itching to know when A Dance with Dragons is coming out will be disappointed that Martin still doesn’t mention the book’s release date, but at least he mentions that the manuscript is already past 1000 pages long.

On a personal note, I’m content to know that the book is progressing nicely and will patiently wait for the release like a good little fangirl even though  I’m honestly dying to read it. I just wish some other fans would exercise the same patience and stop whining to Neil Gaiman, or whoever else whiny fans whine to. As Neil Gaiman so wisely put it, “George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.”

Interviews and whiny fans aside, rumors have also been circulating that the role of Dany in the HBO pilot has already been cast, but Martin himself refutes it on his LJ. He also mentions in the same entry that the hotel that he and some other science fiction and fantasy writers were partying at threw some of them out for “talking too loud”, and that fans only had access to one of the hotel’s elevators because the rest were reserved for their “real guests”.