The Dornish strike back: Keisha Castle-Hughes and Deobia Oparei talk Season 5

Game of Thrones has made a big deal this year about heading to Dorne, the homeland of fan favorite Oberyn Martell, who was last seen with his head splattered across a hot stretch of King’s Landing pavement in “The Mountain and the Viper.” Episodes like “The House of Black and White” and “Sons of the Harpy” have introduced us to new Dornish characters like Prince Doran Martell, his “complicated nieces” the Sand Snakes, and his bodyguard Areo Hotah.

The show’s Dornish adventure has been met with mixed reviews so far, but most of the actors involved have at least been well cast. Recently, Deobia Oparei (Areo Hotah) and Keisha Catle-Hughes (Obara Sand) sat down with Hunger TV and People respectively to chat about their characters, their lives, and this season of Game of Thrones.

The interview with Oparei, who’s starred in cult films like Moulin Rouge! and Dark City but has rarely appeared as a leading man on film, is particularly interesting. He reveals a lot about his early life in the theater and his Game of Thrones audition—apparently he showed up at the wrong venue and had to hoof it to the right place, only to show up sweaty and scary-looking. As it ends up, that made exactly the kind of impression the producers were looking for. He also dropped a few hints about where all the Dornish material is going.

“We discover things in Dorne this season, things that link the Dornish to the Lannisters and everything that’s happening in King’s Landing. It’s very exciting”.

It’s good to hear that the story in Dorne will tie back into the events in King’s Landing. When A Feast for Crows first came out, the Dornish stuff was criticized for seeming tangential to the main plot, and so far the same could be said for the show’s take on it. Hopefully, the brisker pace of the TV show will allow the producers to arrive at the point a little sooner than George R.R. Martin.

In addition to providing that little bit of insight, Oparei drops plenty of other intriguing little nuggets. He’s clearly done his Game of Thrones homework, for one, as he compares Areo Hotah to both Brienne of Tarth (“Just as Brienne is wedded to her sword, he is wedded to his axe.”) and Hodor, insofar as Areo Hotah handles physical tasks impossible for the incapacitated Prince Doran to carry out, much in the way Hodor does for Bran. Oparei continues to show his impressive command of Game of Thrones trivia in a video interview.

I wouldn’t have remembered that Areo Hotah hailed from Norvos. Well done, Mr. Oparei.

The People interview with Keisha Castle-Hughes is a little less in-depth, but it pays to be reminded that, by casting Castle-Hughes, the show has cast an Academy Award nominee for Best Actress. That’s class, right there. At the time, Castle-Hughes was the youngest person ever to be up for a Best Actress Oscar, having been nominated at the age of 13 for her performance in the wonderful Whale Rider. In the interview, Castle-Hughes discusses the pressures of becoming famous at a very young age. Whatever problems she had, she’s now been cast on one of the most popular shows of the last decade, so she seems to have rebounded nicely.

• Published on 05/14/2015 at 1:25 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT