Westeros

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:

After sending a query GRRM’s way, he has posted that the Magheramorne Quarry in Northern Ireland, which was reported to be the site of a “massive castle” set, will be where the exterior set for Castle Black will be made. As GRRM notes, much of the castle will be done through CGI (including the Wall, of course), though there will be an operational winch and other such things at the site.

Finally, George asks fans not to visit the site, noting that the set will look very little like what will appear on screen, and that quarries can be dangerous.

Locus Magazine reports that Songs of the Dying Earth, the anthology co-edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois in honor of Jack Vance, has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards in the Best Anthology category. This follows news from earlier in the year that it was on the long list. An exceptional collection of stories from an exceptional list of authors (including Neil Gaiman, Dan Simmons, Tanith Lee, Tad Williams, and more), the anthology has also previously been nominated in the Locus Awards, the results of which will be divulged this weekend.

A Russian fansite has conducted a new interview, available both in English and Russian, with David J. Peterson (creator of the Dothraki language for HBO’s Game of Thrones) and Sai Emrys. There’s some interesting comparisons of Dothraki to Russian, an additional vocabulary word (the name for the leather vests Dothraki wear), and Peterson’s explanation for how the strong oppositions he saw in Dothraki culture as he read the books influenced his development of the language.

As we speculated, Roy Dotrice is indeed cast as Grand Maester Pycelle, a role which—as we guessed—he was intended to play in the pilot, in a new scenes not from the books which was cut from the shooting script. George provides explanations for his clues, and describes the singular honor he felt in having the opportunity to work with Dotrice on Beauty and the Beast for three years. Below, you’ll find a selection of videos featuring Dotrice’s work over the years.

Of course, GRRM also confirmed Kristian Nairn is Hodor. More notably, it sounds like we’re very shortly going to have a flood of additional casting news, from what George says. In particular? There’s a hint that fans of author Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) will be particualarly interested. Petyr Baelish, better known as Littlefinger, has a mockingbird as his sigil…

Exciting times!

As per our previous posts on the subject of Hodor, it seems Kristian Nairn—the 6’10” Belfast-based professional DJ—is, indeed, our new Hodor. Nairn shyly confirmed via Twitter, accepting congratulations from wellwishers. We put him in touch with Isaac Hampstead Wright, the young actor who’ll be receiving a lot of piggyback rides from Nairn in the months to come.

Nairn is not a professional actor, so we can’t say there’s anything featuring his acting out there to share since the audition video was set private. However, we can certainly say that Nairn isn’t a shy performer, if this video from the Kremlin club of Belfast featuring Nairn in his alter-ego Revvlon (as per his MySpace page) is any proof:

Great song choice! We’ve also found an example of Nairn’s DJing work, in the form of a remix:

Oh, and George has another clue for us all, for a role that’s obviously Hodor:

“He doesn’t have a lot to say, but he says it a lot. He’s not a muslim, not a pagan, not a scientologist, but he might be a town in Scotland.”

Have to agree with Halfhand on this, this is Kristian Nairn, whom we reported on back in May. The first clue identifies the role—Hodor—and the second identifies his name (neither Muslim, nor Pagan, nor Scientologist ... but “Christian”), and the last identifies his last name (Nairn being a Scottish town). He looked like an excellent choice. A shame his audition video is no longer available, but do note our linked post above, where his agent—the one who recorded and posted the video—comments.

It seems that the “old maester”, Grand Maester Pycelle or Maester Aemon, has been cast and GRRM has some clues for his identity. We think we know who this is already, however. The role was originally lined up for an esteemed, world-class actor according to GRRM, when Pycelle was written into a new scene for the pilot which we later learned was removed for time and never filmed. And one name has been commonly recommended for him, a name that’s near and dear to GRRM’s heart: Roy Dotrice, who read the first three novels for the audiobook versions.

An actor with a long career in film and theatre, Dotrice has certainly been a popular choice for a part, and Pycelle or Maester Aemon were really the only two choices for him. Martin once stated some years back that Roy Dotrice would have been his pick for Barristan Selmy, when the ages matched up better.

As to why we’re so sure?

“has lived many lives, brief but numerous.”—Dotrice starred in the play, Brief Lives, and has had many, many roles as well.

“In his youth he fought in the wars that some say inspired all of this.”—He played Edward IV in War of the Roses, a miniseries from 1965.

“He has been a king and a god”—Besides playing Edward, he was also George IV in Shaka Zulu, and he played Zeus in Hercules: The Legendary Journey.

“He’ll always be daddy”—And of course, he played the role of Father in Beauty and the Beast, which GRRM had a hand in producing and writing.

Here’s an interesting attempt to gather together photos of announced cast members for HBO’s Game of Thrones. It sets the pictures side by side with the art of popular A Song of Ice and Fire artist Roman V. Papsuev, also known as Amoka. Papusev’s portraits started as a fan project, but he has received the praise and support of series author George R.R. Martin, and has been hired to produce art for professional publications such as The Art of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and The World of Ice and Fire (forthcoming).

What started as rumors has now come to pass, as young British actor Finn Jones has been cast in the role of Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. A young, brash knight, younger son of a great lord of the realm, Ser Loras is famed for his youthful beauty and his prodigious skill on the tourney ground. GRRM adds some more details, noting that while the decisions had been made to cast him when rumors came out, the actual contracts and the like had not been signed until very recently.  GRRM adds that the audition scene for Ser Loras was a scene from the third book, A Storm of Swords.

Embedded below is a reel of Finn Jones:

Fantasy Flight Games has updated their support site for their forthcoming Battles of Westeros tactical combat game, following their recent scenarios preview. The support site includes a PDF download of the full rules for the game.

What follows is a comparison of Google’s search volume from U.S. addresses for the phrases “Game of Thrones” (blue) and “Boardwalk Empire” (red), their two new shows. Boardwalk Empire has an amazing pedigree, with Martin Scorsese as producer and director of its pilot, and a host of well-regarded actors, as well as rumored buckets of production money unlike any pilot every filmed. And yet . . .

The 1 month timeline is screwy, but it does let us see the relative spike in search traffic volume for Game of Thrones when the teaser and sub-site premiered as compared to Boardwalk Empire‘s more modest spike in activity after their promo and newest trailer release. It looks like GoT had three times the search volume following the teaser, a huge gain presaged by the report that the first novel ended up on Amazon.com’s Movers & Shaker list for awhile.

Of course, we’ve been getting more about Boardwalk Empire for longer, but it’s interesting to see on the “max” scale that the show has only on a couple of occasions spiked above the volume for the Game of Thrones phrase. Some significant portion of that volume (especially back before 2008) is due to the novels, of course, but the huge spikes of late—and the upward trend seen in the “max” scale—are definitely in large part due to the series. This show has more pre-production buzz than any show HBO’s ever aired before, near as we can tell—probably a motivator for such an early unveiling of the sub-site (have we said thanks for that, yet? Thanks, HBO!)—and if we look how True Blood trended, it’s possible that the series could bring down the internet if it pushes the right buttons for HBO viewers.

Avatar Press is publishing Fevre Dream #2 today (tomorrow in the U.K.), the second part of their adaption of George R.R. Martin’s vampire horror novel. The script is by novellist Daniel Abraham, with art by Rafa Lopez. Avatar’s published a Flash-based preview, embedded below:

Fantasy Flight Games, creators of the popular Game of Thrones Living Card Game and the A Game of Thrones board game, have now published a sneak peek at the five starting scenarios in their latest game, Battles of Westeros, based on George R.R. Martin’s setting. The tactical combat game’s scenarios are at least in part inspired by events described in the first novel, including the Battle of the Green Fork and the Whispering Wood.

George R.R. Martin has updated his “Not a Blog” with a new post catching up on what’s going on of late. Of course, with the recent release of the teaser for HBO’s adaption, that heads off the list. He notes casting continues for many roles, and amusingly complains about having invented so many characters. Roles mentioned are, “Mycah, Janos Slynt, Gendry, Tobho Mott, Old Nan, Shagga, Syrio, Marillion, Doreah, Alliser Thorne, Grenn, Pyp, Rast, Osha..:” He also states that Nina Gold, the casting director, is finding some great choices, and the work continues for those who they have not quite settled on.

In other news, GRRM states that the cross-genre anthology he’s editing with Gardner Dozois, Down These Strange Streets, looks likely to be deliverable to the publisher in a month. “Kong”—A Dance with Dragons—on the other hand continues to be a battle. He states he’s been working on the epilogue, not entirely satisfactorily, before switching to rewriting a Tyrion chapter which has gone much better. He cautions that just because he was writing the epilogue does not mean he is done—he often writes chapters out of order.

Finally, he mentions forthcoming appearances: the Clarion writer’s workshop in San Diego in July, a signing at Mysterious Galaxy, but San Diego Comic-con is not likely to happen ... On the other hand, New York Comic-con in October seems a likely bet, according to George. And why not? As the east coast’s answer to SDCC, it’d be an excellent venue for a panel and full-blown promotion for HBO’s new series, as well as the various comic book properties being developed based on his work…

Extras NI, a casting agency in Northern Ireland, has put out a fresh call for extras for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Some excellent details here about the production and what they’re looking for in terms of extras. They list shooting as taking place from August to December (which more or less fits the late July to December dates we’ve been provided before), We’ll paste the salient bits below the cut, but it looks like there’s an opening casting call on June 26th, between 2pm and 6pm, at the Holiday Inn on Ormeau Avenue in Belfast.

All right, after the teaser, the picture, and the goodies, it’s time to show HBO just how crazy we are for their adaption of Game of Thrones.

Just head on over to Television Without Pity and vote for the series in their massive, 24 category Tubey award. TWoP is one of the largest TV fan sites on the web, and the Tubeys are garnering some attention, so this is a great chance to help get the word out there.

Where’s the show? In the very last category, “Most Anticipated Show of 2010-2011”. Vote now!

HBO’s release of the teaser and their opening of the official site for the series—an unprecedented move for a series almost a year out from airing! Straight from the sight are a number of high-resolution images of Ned Stark, perfectly suitable for a widescreen desktop or mobile phone:

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They’ve also released a Quicktime version of the teaser which is slightly higher quality, which can be downloaded here. Thanks to paulo at WICblog for digging these out.

So, the teaser and the still of Sean Bean as Eddard has drawn a mountain of attention. We’ve sliced and diced the teaser, dissecting it to point out what it shows.

But what didn’t we see that we would have expected to see? I’m not talking Daenerys Targaryen or Catelyn Stark—roles that have since been recast and which will have to be reshot. But roles that, at least to our knowledge, haven’t been recast?

Well, the Stark children are missing, but in 20 seconds you can’t really touch on them. We don’t see Jason Momoa as Drogo directly, but that’s probably because his scenes would have been with Tamzin Merchant, the former Daenerys Targaryen. But it’s perhaps a little surprising that we don’t see the direwolf dead in the snow, and it’s very surprising that there’s no clear look at the Lannisters (though we hint that there’s a rather unclear look in our teaser dissection), who are the primary antagonists (kinda-sorta) in the first book(s). Especially when they’re led by three recognizable actors in pop culture circles: Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Peter Dinklage. Why weren’t they featured, at least briefly? If not all three—since Ned was the sole Stark representative, basically—then why not Dinklage as Tyrion? And for that matter, how about Mark Addy as Robert? Though the laughter may have been him…

A press for time is probably the answer, but we have to say, we’d have foregone some of those repeated shots of the rangers or the Dothraki for a split-second look at Dinklage as Tyrion. Perhaps the next teaser, HBO? ;)

So, now that the huge explosion of amazement has happened ... just what did we see in that ultra-fast 20 second trailer?

What follows is our best attempt to look at it frame-by-frame to identify some of the key scenes, now with images thanks to A Song of Ice and Fire forum member thersites (all images © HBO). Suffice it to say, this is probably spoilerish, so read below:

And a special little present… straight to us from HBO, we’ve a second promotional image to compliment the first still!

Photo by Helen Sloan/HBO. Used with permission.

Stunning! HBO has now gone the full court press, with a full website including a web forum. Amazingly exciting.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

Oh, what a tease! What did you think?

Rumors started late last night when HBO tweeted a reminder for viewers to tune into the 8:45 PM pre-show ... and added an unexplained #GOT hash tag. Now they’ve confirmed it via Facebook: our very first aired promotion for Game of Thrones will be among the featured dramas during the pre-show! So, if you have HBO, make sure to tune in to the pre-show preceeding True Blood‘s third season premiere.

According to George R.R. Martin’s latest “Not a Blog” post, the role of Shae’s still being cast for. He’s reviewed twelve audition tapes so far—perhaps the top choices to come out of casting?—and according to his stated reaction, it seems likely that they’re all quite capable of playing of the saucy, vixenish prostitute who’ll become well acquainted with Tyrion Lannister (played by Peter Dinklage). He notes that auditions are continuing in Belfast, Dublin, and London for many parts, both minor and major.

According to James Hibberd at The Live Feed, HBO’s Game of Thrones is “not expected” to have a presence at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con, which falls in line with what we’ve heard over here at Westeros.org. This seems to be supported by the lack of reference to the series among the announced panels from HBO (who are certainly featuring True Blood). It also makes some sense, due to the fact that it’s almost a year before the show premieres, and the filming starts very close to the time of the convention—not an ideal time to drag cast and crew from Northern Ireland and North Africa for a whirlwind press junket.

That said, the possibility that teasers or promotional posters might first see the light of day at San Diego Comic-Con certainly exists. If you’re attending the convention next month, we’d certainly suggest visits to HBO’s booth (they’re almost certainly exhibiting), asking some questions, and expressing your enthusiasm for the show.

UPDATE: Maureen Ryan also confirms that HBO’s not holding a panel for the series, given the logistics of having production starting in Northern Ireland at the same time.

An interview with True Blood‘s Ryan Kwanten brought to our attention that Peter Dinklage, (perfectly) cast as Tyrion Lannister in HBO’s adaption of Game of Thrones, is starring in a comedic fantasy adventure film titled Knights of Badassdom. Kwanten will be co-starring.

The most interesting detail, however, is that this project is filming in the first part of the summer, by the sounds of it. Director Joe Lynch has begun to post the first of a promised series of photos taken from the production, though it’s not clear that filming has actually yet begun. When I dug further, I discovered that the film was originally set to film in April.

Could the delay in this project have contributed to Game of Thrones‘s pilot being pushed back to late July, to accommodate Dinklage’s commitment to the film? Anything’s possible, though the extra lead time for casting and pre-production certainly seems to have been a bigger factor.

For those who’ve missed him in Robin Hood and have access to Showtime, Bronson Webb—cast in the role of the ranger of the Night’s Watch, Will, in the pilot for Game of Thrones—can be seen in a brief speaking role in the first five minutes of Showtime’s costume drama, The Tudors, in the episode that aired on Sunday and should be available streaming for Showtime subscribers. Credited as “Forager”, Webb trades a few lines with the Earl of Surrey regarding a foraging party’s failure to find any food in the vicinity of a siege.

According to George R.R. Martin’s latest post, it seems that the casting for the role of Samwell Tarly is starting to narrow down. In his post, he remarks that, “We’re casting Sam right now for the TV show. Two excellent young actors stand out above the rest. A damned hard choice.” It’s always good to know that they have several top-notch options in a role, and we’re certainly joining all the fans in expectation of some casting announcements in the next few weeks.

Via Twitter, it’s apparently been revealed that an Irish television director, Brian Kirk—whose credits include episodes of The Tudors, Dexter, and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire—is set to direct two episodes of Game of Thrones. In recent years, Kirk has been a regular nominee in the Irish Film and Television Awards for direction and for best single dramatic episode. This item of news comes from a tweet by Daragh Carville, a fellow native of Armagh in Ireland, who wrote Middletown, a 2006 film directed by Kirk.

Carville later tweeted that Kirk would begin work next week, presumably for pre-production. At a guess, the earliness at which he’s working suggests to us he may be directing some of the earliest episodes ... or he may, in fact, have as his first task the reshooting of the pilot.

This is the first director publicly attached to the series since Thomas McCarthy directed the pilot, although it’s been suggested that McCarthy may return to helm one or more episodes going forward.

UPDATE: HBO has confirmed to us that Brian Kirk is attached to the production as a director.

We’ve previously reported the fact that Scientific American published a guest blogger’s letter to HBO, George R.R. Martin, and David J. Peterson regarding the Dothraki language and what role it could have in helping to move linguistic science forward. Now David J. Peterson, along with Language Creation Society president Sai Emrys, has posted a thorough response. Among other things, it seems to include a few, previously unpublished snippets of the Dothraki language, and some examples of its morphology.

The response also goes into great detail regarding the general premise of the original letter, pointing out that the linguistic universals that have been cataloged are not quite so universal as they appear at first blush, as well as the fact that it’s currently too late for them to change the Dothraki language but that Peterson will certainly keep these issues in mind should he be called upon to create other languages for the series or to expand Dothraki.

Jace Lacob of Televisionary is the first person we’ve seen outside of the production who’s seen the whole of the pilot, and probably one of the last who shall do so in that form as a number of scenes will be reshot to accomadate the new actresses in leading roles, Michaelle Fairley as Catelyn Stark and Emilie Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen.

What’d he think? “I was blown away,” he writes, and has been effusive in his praise for the pilot as being one the strongest pilots he’s seen in the current pilot cycle. Over at Twitter, I decided to ask if he had read the series before, as a number of supportive critics have done. He replied that he had not read the books, wanting to go in fresh, though he had read the pilot script earlier and also loved it. He’s looking forward to seeing how the reshot pilot will look.

The fact that he went in fairly “cold” to the series is a great sign—Lacob probably fairly well represents where your average HBO viewer will be when confronted with this new HBO series. If it works for him, as well as for the producers and executives, then it seems to stand fair odds of working for the general subscriber base.