Teale replaces Halligan as Alliser Thorne

Huh :)
James Cosmo stays on board!

I’m sure he’ll be good. Not all assholes LOOK like assholes, thats for sure…

As I recall Thorne actually has quite a bit to do in the first book. Isn’t he the one who takes the wight’s hand to Kings Landing?

Sad about Halligan, he looked exactly how I pictured Thorne. I hoped Teale had been cast as Donal Noye, but he is a welcome addition nonetheless.

And I really wish the recasting tsunami stopped here.

dizzy_34,

Wasn’t that Yoren?

Winter Is Coming,

Thanks Winter

Yoren’s the recruiter, am I right? But I don’t remember him being in GoT.

dizzy_34,

I got the sam problem but not with the first book, but with the second and third – always mixing the plot.

Straphe: Yoren’s the recruiter, am I right? But I don’t remember him being in GoT.    

You’re kidding!
In GoT, Yoren accompanies Jon and Tyrion from Winterfell to the Wall and is then sent back to King’s Landing, where he saves Arya after Ned’s execution!

Anyway, I managed to look like a total noob with my very first comment here, so that must be some kind of a record. :D

Straphe: Anyway, I managed to look like a total noob with my very first comment here, so that must be some kind of a record.     

No harm done. Tower of the Hand is your friend :)

oh, and welcome!

Too bad, I also though Halligan looked perfect for Thorne. I always pictured Thorne with a sharper jaw line like Halligan’s rather than a blockier one like Teale’s.

Acting-wise though, I expect that Teale will do the part justice, for he certainly has the credentials. Good luck to him.

Since we’re on the subject of re-castings, I guess they’re bound to happen when your cast is almost 70 actors strong.

So far we’ve had, what, maybe 8 re-castings? Unfortunately, I’m sure we’ll have a few more, possibly in between seasons. With such a large cast, I think it’s unavoidable.

Lex,

I agree, Lex.
I reckon is not so odd with the large casts.
But though, I must admit I am always a little bit schoked when the recasting is announced.

I think recastings go on in any given project it’s just that we don’t follow those projects in such great detail. I usually watch HBO as it comes, like the Sopranos came along and I had no idea they were even working on it. We watched it because it reminded us of home! My husbands family are Sicilians in the cement block business. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Yup, it’s true, not everyone know about casting details like in GoT.
For example, originally Tony Sopranos was supposed to be played by Ray Liotta, but he dropped out.

OT
When Rome premiered, HBO Canada sent me a DVD of the first episode by mail as a promotional item. Or was it The Movie Network? Anyway, I wish they would do the same with Game of Thrones. Imagine getting the first episode in a nicely printed pocket case…
And it seems like a good way to get subscribers interested in the show, especially those who are hesitating because of the genre.

Lex: What’s crazy is how shocking all the re-castings are. They feel like a punch to the gut! It’s surprising how quickly we grow attached to an actor, merging them with our own mental image of the character.    

I wouldn’t mind them recasting Gendry…. Just kidding :) I’ll give the lad a chance.

Or maybe I should watch Skins, since he seems to have won over a lot of fans with this performance. Anybody has a link?

Nymeria,

You must watch Skins. :D It’s the best teen drama ever. And even “teen drama” doesn’t do it justice — it’s just epic. At least the first two seasons. I cried at the S02 finale. :D

I am also sad about the recasts, altough I have to say that Tamzin Merchant would’ve been tragic as Daenerys. Emilia Clarke is just what I imagined Daenerys to be. Illyrio’s actor was perfect as well… Oh well, what can one do?

Off to aFfC. I’m halfway through. Not sure if I like it, though. The Cersei chapters and all of King’s Landing is great so far, but I really hate Arya’s chapters, and I’m really not sure about Sansa. Dorne is beautiful, love Arianne, but the Greyjoy clan is killing me. Even Asha’s chapters are meeeh.

I didn’t know where to post all of this, so I dumped it into one post. :) Hope it’s not a problem. And i think I’m gonna start commenting more frequently once I finish Crows.

winterqueen,

Well, Thorne is a great part for any character actor to play. He’s going to have at least 3 major scenes (where his character’s actions are the main focus of the action) in aGOT and a few other minor ones.

And as mentioned above he has one major scene in aCoK.

Straphe: Nymeria,
You must watch Skins. It’s the best teen drama ever. And even “teen drama” doesn’t do it justice — it’s just epic. At least the first two seasons. I cried at the S02 finale.

Agreed (same for the finale:)! Strongly recommended, it’s a unique, intense, fun combination of comedy and drama with kick-ass writing, directing and great characters. It even has a POV-structure quite similar to SoIaF. :-)

Straphe,

Feast picks way up towards the end. At least that’s how I read it.

Wastrel,

There are lots of sort of issues that coul lead to recasting. It is not always the “need” of the production itself.
There are personal issues of the actors, their schedules, fees and so on.
That is something I forced myself to take it as quite normal and sometimes inevitable thing.

The Rabbit,

“There are personal issues of the actors, their schedules, fees and so on.”

Doesn’t HBO generally have their actors sign multi-season contracts, though? Such ought to make ‘schedules’ and ‘fees’ a moot point. Certainly if they’re NOT asking actors to sign multi-season contracts, they ought to be. I mean, we’re late in the game. We know which characters are going to die, and how many seasons they require, and any not dead characters can at least be signed to five-season deals.

LordAJ,

Didn’t he say that before we even knew about Halligan?

I gotta say I’m sorry to see Halligan go. He just looked like he was set to OWN this role. I don’t know anything about Teale; he looks too nice to me but he seems to have a good reputation among the members here.

Ashavan, don’t think so.

Wastrel, let me tell you that way. Recastings are very common, but I don’t really remember a tv show which has such a buzz like GoT in process of the filming or shooting a pilot.

About Wire you have to be joking me. The cast in the Wire (brilliant) wasn’t you know big names, they didn’t have something else to play etc. I bet $100 that half of the british cast from GoT plays in theatres etc.
And seriously, Wire had bigger cast? Are you sure?
If anyone is wondering why they aged the kids, then that’s because HBO learned they lesson from Rome when they had to recast Octavian

Wikipedia lists nearly 200 named characters for The Wire… more than I remembered or expected.

Still, we’re already at nearly 70, and there are a LOT more to come (particularly minor roles, as well as major ones in future seasons). We could EASILY tie The Wire, and quite possibly surpass it I think.

nsk,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Wire_characters

Almost 200 with 5 seasons.

nsk:

On The Wire: I did a count once, and discovered that there were about 60 MAJOR characters essential to the plot whose names I could remember… in Season 4 alone! And dozens more named characters. And I’m not talking Gared-level or “Maeghan”-level. And the Wire managed to get really impressive character continuity even among extras. BSG is another good example, as has been pointed out – smaller main cast, but even the extras stayed.

On recasting: I know that THESE recasts are because it’s not done yet. I’m OK with these. It’s the idea of substantial recasts between seasons that perplexes me.

On comparing the two series: I’m not seeing a massive difference, to be honest. I don’t see GoT as a series full of “big names” – I think if I recited the entire castlist to a film-fan friend of mine, only Sean Bean would be a certain recognition, with a good chance for Headey, Addy and maybe Dinklage. But none of those should have a problem staying the distance since they’re not going to be deluged with other offers (except Dinklage, maybe, but there won’t be BETTER offers for him). Another half a dozen would probably ring a bell in face or voice, “oh yeah, he’s that guy from…”. The rest are unknown actors who may have had bit-parts here and there but wouldn’t be really familiar – sure, some of them have had impressive roles in little films, but none are stars.

As for theatre: sure, some of them will act in plays, but I just don’t see HBO being so inept as to give them “sure, you can go do a stage role in a shed in Sheffield any time you please” contracts. If they want to act on stage, they either wait until they leave the series or they do it in the time when they’re not filming. It’s only half a year filming for each series, and if the episodes are filmed logistically wisely, lots of actors will only be needed for weeks or months out of that. Unless the ghosts of Gielgood and Olivier command Owen Teale to play Hamlet every night for a year in a performance for Barrack Obama, Hu Jintao and the assembled choirs of heaven, I don’t think theatre commitments will be a big issue here.

On Dumbledore: yes, of course somebody could die. We can’t do anything about that. But I certainly don’t agree that “chances are good” that somebody’s going to die. I know it’s Northern Ireland, but it’s not an active warzone!

On changes: unless it’s Dany, I think the plot should be re-written to write out characters that can’t come back. I know that means changing the books, but they’ve got GRRM as an advisor, and I’m sure they could work around any obstacle – it might even be exciting to watch how they do it. Sure, it would mean the series would be different from the books, perhaps majorly so, but the series is ALREADY going to be different from the books. the books will still exist. I’d rather have a great series and a great book, rather than a great book and a series that tries to follow slavishly the book but is ruined by recasts.

On recasting in other shows: can anyone think of any examples where this has actually happened? [Not including children replaced by older actors] I can only think of two old British comedy shows: Jeeves and Wooster replaced a lot of actors for its second series (though many came back later), including some major ones, and Red Dwarf replaced several characters (the computer, “Holly” was a man in the first two series and the last two, but a woman for the others; Kochanski is played by one actress in three cameo roles, but is replaced when she becomes a main character (ten years later); likewise, Kryten starts out as a one-off character and is recast when he becomes a regular).

Lex, Straphe, Gaines and Libelle,

thanks for the link. I’ll try and watch some more of Skins. It seems good. And maybe a certain actor will grow on me :) I like him better live than on the pictures I’ve seen, so that’s a start. Though he seems to grin easily, and I pictured Gendry as a bit more serious and shut away.

Regarding recasts:

When I was growing up, we here in Denmark had only one (!) TV channel. Thus, asking your friends at school the next day “Did you watch TV yesterday” – if they said yes, you know you’d watched the same show. Which was often Dynasty. Yeah, go ahead and laugh – I do, too! Mind, we’re talking early 80′s.

But Dynasty (and later The Bold and the Beautiful *cringe*“) each had several recasts. For Dynasty, Fallon and Steven (do anyone here know what I’m talking about?) were both recast, and for Bold and the Beautiful, I stopped keeping track long before my junior year in high school.

I’m not at all trying to make a comparison in quality here. I’m just trying to state that if the audience is devoted enough (read: starved enough), the re-casts will be swallowed because that’s the only possible option. To forego an entire otherwise beloved show because of one or more recasts between seasons is not gullible. Sure, there’ll be gripes, and bitching and moaning, but I know that I – for one – would still be watching!