Holly Marie Combs as Catelyn? OR How a bunch of ASOIAF fans found out IMDb is user-editable

If you’ve read the comments from my last post you will have no doubt seen the on-going discussion of the presumed casting of Holly Marie Combs as Catelyn. I wasn’t going to make a post about this since the issue was already cleared up in the comments, but I’ve been getting a bunch of emails about this so hopefully this post will help clear things up for people. If you go to the Game of Thrones IMDb page right now, you will notice that Holly Marie Combs (of Charmed fame) is listed as Catelyn Stark. This is incorrect. There has been no official announcement of this and it goes against what Benioff and Weiss said in their last post on the Westeros forums.

For those that don’t know, IMDb, much like Wikipedia, is user-editable. Any one with an account (which is free) can make changes to the details of a project. Unlike Wikipedia however, it has to be approved before being finalized. This screening process isn’t 100% foolproof though and a lot of times false information will make it onto a IMDb profile.

In this case, it seems a fan of Combs went and added her to the cast, either as a joke or to get some exposure for her. Not coincidentally, she was also added to the Game of Thrones Wikipedia page back on May 11, but was removed almost immediately. Since it takes a while for the IMDb updates to go through, my guess is the same person added her to both pages and it just recently showed up on IMDb. And since it takes a while for IMDb to get updated, it is taking a while for her to be removed. Unlike Wikipedia where she was removed that same day.

So take this as a future warning, just because you see someone listed as casted on the IMDb page, does not mean it is official. Any official casting announcements will come from Benioff and Weiss or the trades (Hollywood Reporter and Variety) and I will be reporting it as soon as I hear it.

• Published on 05/18/2009 at 7:32 AM CDT
• Last updated on 05/18/2009 at 7:32 AM CDT