Your weekly Game Of Thrones news roundup:
- First up, an interview with Rory McCann (Sandor) at the Daily Express where he reveals he was homeless and broke prior to booking his role in Game Of Thrones. Ironically he was living in Iceland, where he may end up returning if the rumors are true.
- GQ reportedly has a mention of Game Of Thrones in their latest issue in a section that talks about pay cable babes. If anyone has more info on this, please post it in the comments.
- TV.com has posted a list of their most anticipated new shows of 2011 and Thrones has made the list. TV.com seems pretty excited about the show and calls it “the event of the year.”
- TV Squad’s Mo Ryan is also excited about the show and talks about it here, in a recent mailbag post. She does express some reservation over the look of the Targaryen’s, particularly their wigs. (You are not alone FaB!) She also reveals she will be headed to the winter TCA tour and to Stay Tuned for more Thrones coverage.
- The Belfast Telegraph reports that the Norther Ireland government plans to build an expansion to the Paint Hall studios. Game Of Thrones seems partly responsible for the expansion as the production has been a successful investment for the NI film industry.
- Lastly, in filming news, Belfast’s Sunday Life has an article detailing some filming that went on at Inch Abbey. The article mentions the site was converted to look like a medieval castle and that some fake blood was in use. Rimshot has photos of the article on his Twitter. Ran speculates that it might have been the site of Moat Cailin.
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In the Jan 2011 GQ issue, Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey get the following mention as part of a short blurb entitled “The Gorgeous Girls of Pay Cable; It costs money to see them, but this year’s bumper crop is worth every penny: Game of Thrones (HBO; April) Coincidentally, two of the stars of this spring’s new swords-and-sandals ‘adult fantasy’ series also star in several of our adult fantasies.”
Odysseus BlakneyQuote Reply
Looks like the general media sees GOT as a sort of a kinky fantasy porn. Which is kinda stupid and misses the whole point of the story …
Alexander DubrovskyQuote Reply
More like GQ being GQ. Have you ever read a lads’ mag? They’re all like that start to finish.
MonkeyQuote Reply
They were definitely filming at Inch Abbey from last Sunday (12th December), we drove past and saw a plethora of pink GoT signs pointing into the site. Unfortunately, I had no camera with me and we were running late – otherwise I would have ventured in to have a quick look.
Martin
MartinQuote Reply
Aha!! The crew member who told me a while ago they’d be filming at the abbey in GREYabbey must’ve meant INCH abbey! Gorgeous site, right down by the water.
Hope they got it done between snow days – unless snow doesn’t matter.
SilverjaimeQuote Reply
Greeting from the airport, everyone, I’m off to Christmas holidays (hopefully). A nice roundup, with some interesting items to discuss. Maybe there will be some time to relax over the break (then again maybe not) while we await the grand day in January.
Hear Me RoarQuote Reply
I think the Targ’s look fantastic.
Steven ScottQuote Reply
I’m not actually worried about the Targaryens much anymore. The recent trailermaterial has won me over.
Drogo however, I’m not sure if I like his look.
HBQuote Reply
I feel ok saying this since I was also once homeless and living in a tent, but living in a tent in Iceland would be kind of awesome. Definitely an experience anyway. Should add some realism to his roaming the riverlands with Arya . I’m really excited to see him in this role. All his stills look fantastic.
natasjaQuote Reply
Pretty short interview with McCann. I’m sure that he must have had something more to say about his work on Thrones but maybe the journalist wasn’t much interested. Glad things are turning around for the man.
A “star-studded” cast seems a bit strong, to me, though maybe to an Englishman more of our players are household names than they are to a Californian like me.
Maester TcostQuote Reply
Still really disappointed with Sandor’s burn scars… they just don’t look all that terrible, more like his face is just a little melted and lopsided around his eye. I can go with the makeup department not uglying up Peter Dinklage, but the books go on and on about how gruesome and distasteful Sandor’s burn scars are, and they seem like too important a part of his character to leave out like they have here. In a world like Westeros, it just seems like they should be more horrifying-looking, like the book described, in order to be realistic.
Heck, his helm is described as being terrifying, and someone like Tyrion thinks that staring at Sandor’s helm is an improvement over staring at Sandor’s face! The scars being toned down just takes away from the big reveal of him forcing Sansa to stare at his horrible burns and the scars being so horrible that she starts crying with fear.
It would be kinda ironic if Tyrion’s later wounds/scars and Dagmar Cleftjaw’s facial scar and what apparently happens to Theon, courtesy of “Reek” are far worse than Clegane’s facial scars. Kinda disappointing, too. McCann has the look and I’m sure he has the acting chops necessary… he just needs more scarring. The only reason I could see as to why they would tone his scars down is if they thought it would impeded his acting… well, a good actor can emote through a full prosthetic makeup job, and that’s kind of the point of Sandor, that his scars DO impede his facial expressions and make them look odd or frightening.
Varia LectioQuote Reply
Varia Lectio,
I honestly think they look somewhat realistic for someone who has had the scaring for as long as he has, sure he’s not gruesome but they shouldn’t over do the scaring like they did with Two-face in The Dark Knight.
GrimtuesdayQuote Reply
Varia Lectio,
I think you should look him up in the behind the scenes video again. I believe there’s a good shot of him at the end where you can see the right side of his head.
His scar is huge and covers most of the side of his head. His hair is gone and his ear is deformed. They probably made it go a bit more to the side due to the acting reasons you mentioned but they have in no way made it too small. I doubt that burn scars that are as old as his would be very different in color as well.
Tywin’s BastardQuote Reply
alexander – “kinky fantasy porn”
It’s not that far off the mark now though is it. Of course there is much more to it than that but lets not kid ourselves about some of the content.
oenoneQuote Reply
Varia Lectio,
A good actor can emote througha full prosthetic makeup job? Not so sure myself!
Josh Brolin generally falls into good actor category, but mumbled his way through Jonah Hex thanks to some horribly impeding make-up/scarring -admittedly the film was terrible, as was the script and production values, but still, the man can act and would’ve done his best with what was available, if he hadn’t been hamstrung by the make-up
Think we’re all agreed that the Hound is a key character, and as with the de-uglified Tyrion, the ability to emote and act their socks off is more important
Lord WillumQuote Reply
I don’t have a problem with the wigs of the Dargaryens. I think they make Vis and Dany look like people that are from a different world than the Starks, Lannisters, et al.
Just re-read Game of Thrones. The first time in ten years. Man it was awesome. I had forgotten a lot, except for the big major points, so it was just as fun to read again. Also, I bought FFC years ago but never read it. Now I get to look forward to it!
HollyoakQuote Reply
Oh man, george must have had a heartattack in the 4th quarter in that horrible eagles game, damn you Philly!
KnurkQuote Reply
Knurk, haha! I was actually thinking about George as I watched the last 8 minutes of that game unfold. Made a mention of it on my Twitter too.
Winter Is ComingQuote Reply
About Rory’s make-up:
We can’t forget that we haven’t seen yet a full shot of scarred Sandor in a finished still or motion. Those shots of him next to Pycelle are behind-the-scenes material, with natural lighting and a different camera perspective. I have the feeling that his scarring would have some post-production treatment and the extent of it will vary depending how close the shot is supossed to be, the same way that the crew of LOTR gave full orcish make-up to the actors who were close to the lense and less-elaborated masks to those in the background.
But I agree that the final product will be les gruesome that GRRM’s Sandor dor the same reason other posters have already pointed out.
DennaiQuote Reply
Winter Is Coming,
Yet another reason the Iggles are evil. How do Philly fans feal about Desean Jackson? As a Dallas fan I laughed my butt off when he threw the ball down before crossing the goal line a couple of years ago. If he were on my team I know he’d be getting ripped six ways to sunday for his goal line antics.
dizzy_34Quote Reply
If his scarring was as horrific as described in the books, it would have made even more of an impression onscreen. So toning it down a bit, seems about right.
sjweningsQuote Reply
dizzy_34,
We love DeSean. You can tell he just loves to play the game. Yeah, he gets a little crazy with the extra-curricular stuff, but it’s all in good fun. He’s a great player and, by all accounts, a great teammate. He’s not a Me-First guy like TO was.
I thought the flop into the end zone was pretty funny, if a tad unnecessary, but at least he held onto the ball as he crossed the goal line that time! This past week I think he was just looking to make sure the clock was expired before crossing the goal line, I don’t think he did it to showboat.
BTW we really made life miserable in the Dallas area last week, didn’t we? First we stomp on the Cowboys on national TV then we steal Cliff Lee away in the middle-of-the-night. I would say I feel bad for Dallas fans, but I don’t like to lie. ;)
Winter Is ComingQuote Reply
Winter Is Coming,
Stomp is a bit of an excessive term but yeah … those hurt. I don’t hold anything against Lee, he went where he wanted to go (apparently his kid’s doctor is in Philly) but in a non LeBronn type way. We got the Stars and the Mavs kicking butt so far though.
dizzy_34Quote Reply
DeSean needs his showboatin ass kicked. Does he realize what an idiot he looks like? I don’t mind celebrating, just do it after you score. He makes me so f’n mad. His interviews don’t help his image much either. Cowboy’s almost beat them with a 40 yr old back up quarterback.
justsayin6822Quote Reply
On the topic of Sandor’s burn scars. My father had a pretty bad accident with fire when he was a teen, to this day the affected skin on his face is reddish (and he’s 55 now). So I’d expect Sandor’s scars to be discoloured as well especially that from what we know about the origins of his scars it must have been a very severe burning. And Martin also described it as red.
However, as has been already said, lets wait till we see it after postproduction. And if what we see now is the final effect… well, can’t say I will spend sleepless nights because of that. Just one more of those little details they didn’t get right, like so many eye colours… I’ll be a little sorry but if the feel of the show is right, I can live wth that :)
Md.Quote Reply
Is there any reason at all to wait till post production to add a little reddish color? I simply assume they have done all they wanted to do with his scarring.
sjweningsQuote Reply
Our Gregor’s getting beaten by some limp-wristed spellworm in the Suvudu cage match grand final.
http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/12/cage-match-2010-championship-rand-althor-versus-the-mountain-that-rides.html
Get your votes in there so he can do to Rand al’Thor what he did to Elia of Dorne.
GaRQuote Reply
Md.,
There’s not just one single way scar tissue can end up looking. Burn scars can certainly be light-colored, even if your father’s aren’t.
mummerQuote Reply
Winter Is Coming,
Nooooo!
I protest, football instead of news … this is so typical, just like on Not A Blog. Don’t do that to us, go write about the show. Only the Americans (and Knurk) care about this stupid game.
/Sarcasm off :P
Hear Me RoarQuote Reply
Hear Me Roar,
That’s the one with the dudes who get dressed up in armour to play rugby, right?
GaRQuote Reply
mummer,
I’ll back this up. My grandmother was in a terrible house fire when she was a teenager and was badly burned on her scalp. Her burn scars were just as mottled as Sandor’s, but they were not really discolored…if anything, they were a little bit lighter than her skin tone.
Stella MarisQuote Reply
GaR,
Nope. That s the one with BIG dudes jumping on each other. And the one with the referee constantly shoutnig nonsenses on his mike. And there are more breaks than the game….
HRM just said what I had in mind the whole afternoon…OH NO, not here please ;)
/Sarcasm off, too :)
The RabbitQuote Reply
It looks like Starz wants to go head-to-head. They just announced that Camelot will debut on April 1.
CadQuote Reply
My worry with Dany is that everything I’ve seen of her, she’s been too wimpy and whiney and weak acting. She’s not supposed to be “tough” but she’s supposed to have some inner strength and royalty, but the stuff I’ve seen, she’s just been really weak looking.
Steve HQuote Reply
Can you tell us what gave you that impression? Because from what I have seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EVKp5nYxyI
(7:06 mark). She actually displays much strength.
Victoria ColeQuote Reply
Yes, let’s all show up and vote for Gregor to beat Rand al’Thor: http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/12/cage-match-2010-championship-rand-althor-versus-the-mountain-that-rides.html
Let’s show that this is the year of A Game of Thrones :-)
Nigel BradleyQuote Reply
Cad,
You beat me to that comment about Camelot! I’m interested in this series, but cautious at the same time. Of the series Starz has put out so far, only Spartacus has held my interest through to the end, but even it was not as good as what other networks have produced. I was so excited about Pillars of the Earth and then terribly disappointed with the first couple eps. I wonder if they purposely waited for the announcement about GoT before announcing Camelot’s premier date.
SareetaQuote Reply
mummer,
Well, I have no real knowledge about this matter, just saying what I do know from life. Of course you might be right, and as said, I’m not really concerned with the colour of his scars.
But anyway, forgot to mention that I’d never suspect that an actor such as Rory McCann, who after all played in some big hollywood productions (even if minor parts) could have such financial difficulties. This story made me sad… ironically it fits in some way the homeless (masterless?) Hound we know from the later books. Hoping things turn out for the better for him, both the character and actor :)
Md.Quote Reply
Interesting story in this week’s economist about the Battle of Towton – the bloody massacre during the War of the Roses (which I believe GRRM took as inspiration for parts of GOT).
http://www.economist.com/node/17722650?story_id=17722650
DougQuote Reply
interesting
Adam RobertsQuote Reply