George provides fresh casting news: Rickon and MMD cast

GRRM is back, baby! Dealing with heaps of work and correspondence awaiting him upon his return from Australia, he came around to updating us on the progress of the show. At least the bits he’s familiar with after the long absence. First of all, his comment on the latest trailer video and the behind-the-scenes footage:

Parris and I saw these on her laptop in Sydney, in the middle of the Australian night, the night they aired, but it was not until we returned home that we were able to see them on a full-size screen. I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did.

Now to the exciting part of George’s post. They have cast the roles of Rickon, Mirri Maz Duur, and switched the character of Elyes Gabel to Rakharo.

We have a couple new castings to announce. The part of Rickon Stark will be played by ART PARKINSON, a Belfast native son. Rickon will be older than he is in the books, but still the yougest Stark. And MIA SOTIRIOU has been cast as the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Also, a small change for Elyes Gabel. He will now he playing Rakharo rather than Jhogo. It was felt that Jhogo and Drogo sounded too much alike when spoken aloud, and might cause confusion.

Hear Me Roar: That’s just the Not A Blog update I have been waiting for. You can depend on George to provide us with news on minor character castings, and now we can fill some more gaps. Aging up Rickon is in line with the strategy so far, and it’s all good since he still remains the youngest one. Switching to Rakharo is an elegant solution, I have no beef with that, and the name of our maegi sounds Greek, which – I guess – promises a suitable look for the character. More to follow when we dig up info on the new actors …

UPDATE: There is an Art Parkinson profile at IMDb which seems to be a match, he played Young Kenneth in the British horror Red Mist two years ago. This film would probably be our best chance at the moment to get some visuals. [Thanks to Lex for providing a screencap.] Things are a bit more complicated in the case of MMD. I could not find anything on Mia Sotiriou, but my best guess is GRRM or someone he got the info from has made a typo and her surname is actually SOTERIOU. [It has been confirmed that this is indeed the case.] Mia Soteriou was the vocal coach on Mamma Mia! and played the minor role of Arina in that same flick. Her credits include a familiar list of British productions such as Soldier Soldier, Mersey Beat, Eastenders, and The Bill, as well as Eastern Promises. The photo of Mia Soteriou shows that she matches the character of the maegi quite well, in my opinion.

UPDATE 2: We have now got a good photo of Art Parkinson. The credit (and our thanks) goes out to Screenterrier who dug it out of the interwebs, and to the extra Two Feathers who confirmed that this is indeed the boy who is playing Rickon in the series, and is much loved by everyone involved. The readers agree he looks just like Isaac’s youger brother, which he should. Another inspired casting, I may add.

• Published on 09/29/2010 at 3:19 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/20/2016 at 5:14 PM CDT