George R.R. Martin's Blog, page 227

I've met Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner (and their charming moms). They're terrific, bright and beautiful and bursting with enthusiasm, excited to be a part of this.

And now I'm having pangs of guilt about all the horrors that they're going to have to go through in the months and years to come, thanks to me.

I'm going to have to rewrite the books so only nice things happen to Arya and Sansa. Might change the story some.

Also ran into Ron Donachie, Jennfier Ehle, and Kit Harington, and all o...

We're here in Edinburgh, safe and sound but jetlagged. A grueling trip, three flights, Albuquerque to Houston, Houston to Newark, Newark to Edinburgh. I can't sleep on airplanes, so as usual I arrived exhausted, and collapsed as soon as we hit the hotel. Sleep until midnight, then woke, ate a room service meal, and will soon go back to sleep in hopes to waking tomorrow and getting into sync with the time here.

Glad to see so much enthusiasm about the cast.

Gnight again.

... (but certainly not the least) was our intrepid horselord, Khal Drogo of the Dothraki.

The search for the right khal was exhaustive, and included auditions on four separate continents (maybe five, not sure if those Brazilian readings ever took place). As with several other parts, there were a lot of great readings, and the producers had several interesting choices.

The final nod went to Jason Momoa, who is best known to American television viewers for his role on STARGATE: ATLANTIS.




I blus...

I said that the big man could tell you the latest casting news. That's because the big guy is Ian McNeice, a veteran British character actor most recently seen on HBO as the newsreader in ROME. He's done a million other parts as well, of course. In A GAME OF THRONES, he'll be playing Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos, merchant prince, and arch- conspirator.





There is one character with a speaking part in the HBO pilot who did not appear in my novel. In the early drafts ...

I'm off tomorrow for the UK and the pilot shoot, so it stands to reason that I won't be at MileHiCon in Denver this weekend. I haven't yet figured out how to be in two places at one time.

However, there will be some cool news announced for the first time at MileHiCon, so if you should happen to be in Denver, keep your ears peeled, and you can be one of the first to know.

One of the hardest parts to cast was Bran. When the story opens he's a cute kid, off to see a man beheaded for the first time. But after that... think of all the challenges that await the boy in this role. We think we've found a young actor capable of handling them, however. His name is Isaac Hempstead-Wright.



My clues for this one are pretty self-explanatory. Hempstead is a town in Nassau, and Isaac was the Biblical sacrifice (not really, of course, Yahweh was just joking around). All t...

Can't make the signings in Belfast on November 3 or Dublin on November 5?

Maybe the third time will be the charm. I'm coming to London as well.

I'll be appearing at Forbidden Planet's megastore on Wednesday, November 11, to sign copies of the new Harper Collins trade hardcover of SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH, the Jack Vance tribute anthology, and any of my other books as well.



Forbidden Planet
179 Shaftesbury Avenue
London
WC2H 8JR

If you can't make the signing, but would like to order a signed book ma...

A GAME OF THRONES opens in the haunted forest north of the Wall, with three brothers of the Night's Watch on a ranging.

The viewpoint character is Will, sent to the Wall for poaching. In the pilot, he will portrayed by Bronson Webb.




He has been in projects with Tamzin Merchant, Nicholaj Coster-Waldau, and Iain Glen. One of his first roles was "boy on a bicycle." Peter Parker is Spider-Man and Bronson is a Webb, so they have spiders in common. And he has a home page, a Facebook page, and a My ...

I am the last one to the party, I know. I was off in Fargo enjoying Valleycon, away from my computer and the internet, and while I was gone the last remaining speaking part in the pilot was cast, and HBO officially confirmed a whole bunch of the roles and actors I've been hinting at. The cast lists are all over this Interwebbie thing by now, and you guys guessed pretty much all of them ages ago in any case (it really was scary, the way you all figured out some of those clues).

For them what ...

Life is meaningless and full of pain.

'Nuff said.