Game of Thrones Reportedly Offers a Role to Bollywood Star Neil Nitin Mukesh
By Ani Bundel
How many big name actors can one show have? Sometimes I think that Game of Thrones is working hard to find out.
There are reports today of yet another big name actor being cast for Game of Thrones Season 6. According to the Mumbai Mirror, and picked up by papers across the UK, Neil Nitin Mukesh, who is a pretty big actor in the Bollywood industry, says he’s been offered a role in show.
The casting of a high profile Bollywood actor would be something of a big deal, since Game of Thrones has a huge Indian following, partly due to the “censored” nature of the show when it airs, versus the real thing. There has even been reports of an Indian remake of the show, so that it can be presented in such a manner that it won’t upset the Indian morality laws.
What that role is exactly has not been specified, but according to Mukesh, he “plays a royal and is also featured in combat scenes.” The report claims it’s his ability to do combat that got him the role. Mukesh worked with Greg Powell, a huge name in the stunt industry, on his last major feature, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Apparently, Powell was very impressed with him.
But is this report actually true? As Bollywood Life points out, Greg Powell isn’t actually the stunt coordinator for Game of Thrones, although he’s a big name in the stunt industry generally, having worked on the Harry Potter movies and the second Avengers film. But he’s not working on Thrones. The stunt coordinator for this season (and last season) is Rowly Irlan. Before that, it was Paul Herbet.
Bollywood Life also points out that with filming three quarters of the way over, it seems unlikely they’d still be bringing large parts aboard. But this season hasn’t been like other seasons, in that the major cast wasn’t set over the summer. And casting reports are still coming in, even at this late date. So that’s not a reason to discount it. It’s also possible the producers are looking ahead past Season 6.
After all, we haven’t seen the show do a lot of Dornish scenes, and we know they’re currently filming stuff that happens in Essos. A dark and swarthy actor playing a “royal” could perhaps slot into either of those plots.
Still, I think we should wait for HBO to return comment before we start calling this a done deal.