HBO's Game of Thrones has closed out its second season to record numbers. We were hoping the ratings might be so good that HBO would just go ahead and order Seasons 3 & 4 in one fell swoop, but we'll have to be content with just the one for now. We'll be getting 10 more episodes in the spring of 2013, covering some of the events of the third book, A Storm of Swords. However, recent interviews with the showrunners have indicated that as they move forward they plan on adapting A Song of Ice and Fire as a whole, rather than trying to squeeze specific books into specific seasons. This will have the unintended consequence of making it much harder for me to know who needs to be cast for each season. :)
If you've read the books, you know that means we'll be seeing a host of new characters, in addition to the favorites who managed to survive seasons 1 & 2. I've always been a huge fan of casting speculation, so I'm channeling my excitement for season 3 into a series of posts where I cast the major roles. And don't forget, Sean Bean and Peter Dinklage were the fan favorites to play Ned & Tyrion, so who knows, maybe I'll actually get one right along the way.
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Mance Rayder
Mance is the King Beyond The Wall you've been hearing about from the Night's Watch and the Wildlings. Basically, that just means he's managed to unite most of the Free People north of the wall into a loose confederation. Mance was originally a Wildling, but was taken in by the Night's Watch as an infant. He was a loyal brother until an he suffered an injury while ranging (I'll leave the specifics for the show to share). He left the watch and traveled north to live with the Free People, and no one "civilized" seen him since. When he appears in the third book, he's middle-aged with greying dark hair. He's a skilled musician, and he's obviously charismatic enough to build a coalition of people who, by their very nature, hate the idea of joining. He'll be an important foil for Jon Snow throughout the third season (and beyond?).
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Dominic West
West is probably best known as Detective McNulty, one of the main character's on HBO's
The Wire. He played Fred Casely in
Chicago, and the evil Spartan politician Theron in
300. This summer he played Sab Than, the evil general, in
John Carter. He is currently starring in the BBC's
The Hour, where he plays television host Hector Madden. West has worked with HBO before, and the producers have already gone to the
Wire well when they cast Aiden Gillen as Littlefinger. He's also willing to work in television, and with HBO in particular. He's the perfect age for Mance, turning 43 this fall. The biggest hurdle is probably his work on
The Hour. It has been commissioned for a second season, but I haven't seen when it will begin shooting. The nice thing is that Oona Chaplin, Talisa on
Game of Thrones, plays his wife in
The Hour, and so I assume the shooting schedules won't completely overlap. I think West has a great presence, and would bring a real gravitas to the scenes north of the Wall, which to this point have been most remarkable for their scenic beauty.
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