Hey, Arya’s on Doctor Who—What select Game of Thrones actors are doing outside the show

Game of Thrones has been a boon to the careers of pretty much every actor who’s been on it—if you’ve acted on the show, casually mention it to a casting agent and I guarantee their eyebrow will rise involuntarily in interest. Some of the cast members, like Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington, have parlayed their roles on Game of Thrones into film careers, but pretty much everyone involved has shared in the show’s success.

Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), for example, had an especially productive week. First up, we have some new shots of Williams on the set of Doctor Who, where she was presumably filming her upcoming guest spot.

It would appear that Williams will be playing some kind of Zorro-like female swashbuckler, which actually isn’t too far off from what she does on Game of Thrones. If you’ve got a strength, you might as well stick to it.

In other Maisie-related news, Cinedigm has acquired the North American distribution rights to The Falling, a drama in which Williams plays a British schoolgirl in the ’60s. The Falling centers around a fainting epidemic, which sounds like something Arya would never be afflicted by, so this could make for an interesting change of pace.

Moving on the people who aren’t Maisie Williams (it had to happen sooner or later), DeObia Oparei (Areo Hotah) has been cast as the Oxford-educated son of an African warlord in the upcoming Independence Day 2 (in related news, someone decided to make Independence Day 2). On Game of Thrones, Hotah has thus far done nothing but look imposing and hold a big axe, but this role should allow Oparei to display his range by pointing wildly and running like mad from invading aliens.

Finally, the internet has discovered that Brenock O’Connor, the young actor who plays the Ygritte-killing, stank eye-throwing Olly, covers popular tunes on his YouTube channel. Let’s take a listen.

Of course, YouTube is replete with young crooners doing their own takes on popular songs (O’Connor also covers, among others, Bill Withers and Otis Redding), but most of them haven’t been on Game of Thrones. Their mistake.

• Published on 05/10/2015 at 5:25 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT