Thursday
Oct092014
Westeros Comes to Hollywood: Casting News for Game of Thrones Actors
Thursday, October 9, 2014 at 6:06PM Margaret here to talk about Hollywood casting directors' collective infatuation with the actors on Game of Thrones. HBO's fantasy epic is a ratings juggernaut and has been Emmy-nominated a hundred times over. Its enormous cast (more series regulars than any other show on television) is getting a lot of attention, and many of them are landing high-profile movie roles. The prestige cable effect, so often noted for its ability to bring movie stars to TV, seems to be working in the other direction for Game of Thrones.
Let's check in on the upcoming projects from our Westerosi friends:
Carice van Houten
GoT Role: Melisandre, spooky red-headed priestess
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Emilia Clarke
Richard Madden
Natalie Dormer
Kit Harington
Recently Booked: the Jesse Owens biopic Race. The Dutch actress will play legendary German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
Aidan Gillen
GoT Role: Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, slippery schemer.
Recently Booked: Recently greenlit sequel The Maze Runner Chapter II: The Scorch Trials. It's reported that he'll be playing the villain, Janson.
Gwendoline Christie
GoT Role: Brienne of Tarth, lady warrior
Recently Booked: Star Wars: Episode VII. Her role is top-secret, but the movie is about as high-profile as they come. Her combat experience and 6'3" frame are likely to feature. She's also booked a small part in the final Hunger Games film, as a military commander.
More Westerosi movie news after the jump..
Charles Dance & Lena Headey
GoT Roles: hard-nosed patriarch Tywin Lannister and daughter Cersei, Queen Regent
Recently Booked: The Lannister father-daughter pair will both appear in the long-gestating film adaptation of the bestselling Austen parody Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Their experience with aristocratic airs as well as prodigious gore make them amply qualified.
Nikolaj Coster-WaldauGoT Role: Jaime Lannister
Recently Wrapped: Gods of Egypt, which will spin classical Egyptian mythology into another White Guys in Eyeliner action-adventure epic. Coster-Waldau will play Horus, God of the sky. (It's slotted for February, which says a lot.)
Emilia ClarkeGoT Role: Danaerys Targaryan (alias "Mother of Dragons")
Recently Wrapped: Terminator: Genisys (unfortunately spelling), the re-re-boot of the Terminator franchise. Clarke stars as Sarah Connor, a role (fun fact!) played by her Thrones co-star on the TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Richard MaddenGoT Role: The ill-fated King in the North, Robb Stark
Recently Wrapped: Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella, wherein he'll put that concerned patrician brow to good use as Prince Charming.
Natalie DormerGoT Role: Margaery Tyrell, frequent king-marrier
Recently Wrapped: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2. Her role as Cressida was small in the book, but since they're stretching the story over two movies she may end up with more to do.
Kit HaringtonGoT Role: Grumpy illegitimate son Jon Snow. (He knows nothing.)
Recently Wrapped: The oft-delayed YA adaptation Seventh Son, notable to us mostly because it also features Julianne Moore.
Which of these projects are you most looking forward to? Who do you think has a shot at honest-to-goodness movie stardom?
Reader Comments (8)
I'm glad to see Robb Stark getting booked for something because I prefer him to Kit Harrington who is getting so much work.
Nikolaj & Carice of course have international filmographies but before and during Game of Thrones and they're always good. Nikolaj has a Danish drama playing festivals that i really wanted to see but couldn't squeeze in in Toronto
It's a bit of a stretch to hint that GoT is getting many of these actors noticed. Dance, van Houten and Costers-W have had thriving film careers for many years (decades in Dance's case). Dormer is one of the most booked actresses on television (Tudors, Silk....even our own Elementary), Gillen (the original Queer as Folk ), the Wire...... I'm glad to see Christie getting booked as well as Clarke and Madden as I enjoy them, but the first 5 were going to be working regardless of GoT.
Gosh, are all these talented actors now forever doomed to star in forgettable genre crap?
At least Carice has something potentially juicy to sink her fangs into.
I am very disappointed that crap actors like Emilia Clarke and Kit Harrington are seeing a career boost due to the show. No way do those performances deserve any sort of career/opportunity rewards.
Van Houten and Dormer was pretty famous before the show - the show was lucky to get them to be honest.
I think "pretty famous" is a bit of a stretch for Dormer. She had a good-sized TV role on The Tudors for two seasons, but if you look at her subsequent career she was still doing things like what were basically walk-on parts in Captain America: The First Avenger. The show has been a huge boost to her.
The original post doesn't mention any of the younger Starks, but I really want to see Sophie Turner as Mary Shelley in the upcoming Mary Shelley's Monster (which involves one of the TV directors from <I>Penny Dreadful, which sounds like it will be a different approach than the other Mary Shelley movie in the works with Elle Fanning; if we're getting two, they might as well be distinct).
Gwendoline Christie and Natalie Dormer for all of the roles! Those two are beyond perfection with their characters on the show.
But really, if Christie plays her cards right, I think she could be a sensational character actress. She could be in a Coen Bros movie right now.
Lena Headey's been having a great couple years so good for her.
Hopefully Maisie Williams takes off at some point as well as she's so thoroughly engaging and compelling and frequently walks away with being the MVP on the show.
With the certain amount of faith Game of Thrones actors got a phenomenal response of fans and made Hollywood proud on them.
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