Casting director info and more

Well it’s been a crazy few days, with casting info flying around left and right. My previous post linked to a thread in which a poster indicated that Nina Gold was the casting director for Thrones. Nina Gold is a well-respected casting director who has worked on many films and television series, most notably, HBO’s Rome. A user over at the Game of Thrones IMDb message board has posted a Showfax link confirming that she is working on the project. In addition, this poster provides a run down of “sides” that were recently posted in LA. Here is what the poster had to say:

Los Angeles casting notices went out recently (June 10) for 16 characters:

Arya
Bran
Catelyn
Cersei
Daenerys
Drogo
Jamie Lannister
Jon Snow
King Robert
Ned
Prince Joffrey
Robb Stark
Sansa
Ser Jorah
Theon
Viserys

Casting breakdowns were found a few days ago for Drogo, Cersei, and Jamie. As far as whether breakdowns for the other 13 characters also went out on the 10th, I didn’t see any breakdowns for the other 13, but there were casting sides (pages of script actors use to try out for roles, for those who don’t know what “sides” are) for all 16 of them that were posted on June 10. Therefore, breakdowns for the other 13 roles may also exist (just not at the showfax site).

As the post states, sides are basically what the actor uses to read for his audition. They include a couple scenes from the script. They usually also provide a description of the character. Showfax is the industry standard for distributing these sides.

Based on the description of Jaime’s side provided by the IMDb poster, it looks as if the scenes present in his side are from the leaked script that I reviewed back in December. This confirms that that script was the real thing. Also a user named iheartseverus over at the Westeros forums further backs this up with his/her descriptions of the scenes for more characters, including Catelyn, Arya, Jon and Daenarys. These descriptions also contain a few scenes that were not in the original script, which indicate either revisions were made, or they are scenes from the potential second episode.

Winter Is Coming: So what does all this mean? Based on the Showfax link it would seem to mean that almost all of the roles are still currently casting. However, reports we have heard from folks who have already auditioned for a second time would seem to indicate that that is not the case. It could be that Showfax was slow to post these sides and that many of those roles are already cast. It seems that that is most likely the case. The only exception to these would be Cersei, Jaime and Khal Drogo, who all seem to be currently still in the casting process in LA.

Update: It looks like they have extended their search for Khal Drogo to NYC, based on this breakdown posted to Actors Access (you will have to sign up for a free account to see it). Also according to the breakdown, filming for the pilot is scheduled to begin on October 12 and last until November 6th! In addition, it gives us the full list of casting directors for this project. Here they are:

London Casting Director: Nina Gold
L.A. Casting Directors: Amy Berman, Carrie Frazier
L.A. Casting Associate: Michelle Taylor Spellman
N.Y. Casting Directors: Kerry Barden, Paul Schnee
N.Y. Casting Associate: Allison Estrin

• Published on 06/13/2009 at 5:28 PM CDT
• Last updated on 06/13/2009 at 5:28 PM CDT