Reaction to the news

Martin weighs in with his thoughts on each role and reveals which clues connected to which actors. Basically we nailed all the clues with the exception of the “boney pop singer” which was a reference to the unknown child actor Maisie Williams. So that one was pretty much impossible. But the others, even the hidden clues, we had pegged. Click the links below to read George’s thoughts on each actor.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister
Alfie Owen-Allen as Theon Greyjoy
Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner as Arya and Sansa Stark
Richard Madden as Robb Stark
Tamzin Merchant as Daenarys Targaryen
Iain Glen as Jorah Mormont

In the comments to one of his previous posts, Martin also talks about some of the roles still yet to be cast. Here is what he had to say:

Actually, we’ve seen a number of actors who would be great as the Hound. Speaking purely for myself, I think the hardest role to fill is Bran.

Hodor is going to be hard as well. We need to find a really big, strong actor who can convey a huge range of reactions and emotions entirely with his face, his eyes, and spoken variations of a single word. Like asking a guitarist to play a tune with only one string.

Winter Is Coming: George seems very excited about this cast so far. And with good reason. I like Coster-Waldau as Jaime. He isn’t as “pretty” as I thought Jaime would be, but he looks like a warrior. Will have to watch some episodes of New Amsterdam or dig up the Virtuality pilot to see his acting ability. Allen isn’t exactly how I pictured Theon, but I can change my mental image of him pretty easily. He comes across as kinda arrogant-looking in his pictures, so he should have that part of Theon down. I think Madden is a great Robb. Looks a bit older than 17, but we have 22-year-olds playing Dany and Jon, so 23 isn’t so bad. Glen should be great as Jorah, maybe not as burly as the book version, but I think he looks the part of an old, tired, exiled knight. And he is a great, great character actor. Obviously I have no way of judging the child actors, so I’ll have to trust Nina Gold and the producers on this one.

That brings us to Merchant, probably the most contentious casting decision yet. And I have to say, honestly, I’m not a fan. Hopefully I can say this without coming off as shallow as some of the trolls here, but I don’t find her that attractive. That’s just my opinion and she certainly isn’t “ugly,” just something is a little off about her looks. That could work in her favor though as Dany was always someone that many people imagined having a unique look. However, I always saw her as beautiful in an odd way, not odd in a beautiful way. If that even makes sense.

But even more important than her looks is her acting ability. From what I’ve seen so far, I haven’t been impressed. To be fair, I’ve only seen her in a couple episodes of The Tudors, but I just didn’t find her presence all that compelling. She was supposed to be pulling off this great act of seduction and it didn’t come off that way at all. You could say it was the script or whatever, but a great actress should be able to rise above a weak script and bring some presence to the role. I just wasn’t feeling it. It sounds like she had some strong auditions, so I will reserve final judgment once I see her on screen as Dany. She may nail the role, I don’t know. Just saying my initial reaction is that they may have missed on this one. So Tamzin, if you are reading this, I hope that you will prove me wrong.

All in all, the cast is great. Looking forward to the next announcement which will hopefully include Cersei, Sandor and Bran. As fun as all the speculating was I think I’d rather just have the news be released and be surprised by the choices. While it was nice to finally get confirmation on these names I have to admit it was kinda anti-climactic since we had figured them all out already!

• Published on 08/20/2009 at 9:11 PM CDT
• Last updated on 09/11/2009 at 9:34 PM CDT