Mo casting and recasting

Mo Ryan has published some further Game of Thrones casting news:

• Varys, the calculating spymaster for the king of Westeros, will be played by UK actor Conleth Hill.
• The role of Waymar Royce has been recast due to a scheduling issue. Jamie Campbell-Bower had played the role in the pilot but when the producers decided to do reshoots of his scenes, Campbell-Bower was unavailable. The role of Royce will now be played by Rob Ostlere.

GRRM confirms the casting of Varys, and introduces us to Conleth Hill (photo above). Check his website here.

Hear Me Roar: Busy night for us in Europe. Hope the readers are satisfied with so much on their hands all at once now. Really unfortunate about Campbell-Bower, he was a perfect Waymar. The next step is to dig more info on Rob Osterle and to check whether Hill is so chameleonic as George promises us (not that we doubt his words). Off we go.

UPDATE: The profile of Rob Osterle can be found here (photo to the left), courtesy of the reader Steven Scott. The commenters like Waymar’s new looks, but would like JC-B back in another, bigger role. I tend to agree.

UPDATE: GRRM updated his blog with more info on the Royce recasting. Basically, they wanted to reshoot the prologue scene and make it better which meant they needed the actors to return. Jamie Campbell-Bower of course is busy filming the lead in Starz’s Camelot, so was unavailable, hence we now have Osterle. GRRM also mentions that the other rangers may need to be recast as well (a casting call already went out for the part of Will) and, worryingly, mentions that ANOTHER part may need to be recast due to scheduling problems, one that is NOT in the prologue.

REASSURING UPDATE: George specified in the comments to that same blog entry that Bean and Dinklage are firmly aboard and will not be recast. The parts possibly up for recasting are all much smaller ones.

• Published on 07/15/2010 at 5:51 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/20/2016 at 5:14 PM CDT