Celeb roundup: Alliser Throne redoes Romeo and Juliet, and Daario 1.0 battles Deadpool

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and actor Owen Teale (Alliser Thorne) is ready with an appropriate project. According to Pink News, he’s appearing in a new audio drama from Amazon called Romeo and Jude, a modern take Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Teale will play Ray, an ambitious actor who’s dealing with divorce and a looming bankruptcy when he’s cast as Romeo in a production of Shakespeare’s epic romance. The director of the play decides to cast it as Shakespeare would have: with all male actors. She casts Jude (Matthew Tennyson), a disillusioned college dropout, as Juliet. Life imitates art, and Ray and Jude fall in love.

Alliser Thorne: romantic lead

I’ve gotta admit: it’s a little hard to picture Owen Teale pulling off a love story—I’m too used to seeing him play Jon Snow’s hardass boss turned colleague turned murderer. I would fear for Jude.

Still, Teale is a seasoned actor, and seems enthusiastic about the project. “It’s an amazing piece of writing,” he said. “All the characters have vastly different voices, but they are all capable of being eloquent in their own way. You go on a journey with Ray and Jude, as they fall in love and make a break for it while exploring their sexuality together – and the sexual content, which is so important to the story, is brilliantly woven in.”

Next, as you may be aware, there’s a new superhero movie coming out today: Deadpool, starring Ryan Reynolds as a vulgar, violent, highly unstable mercenary. Ed Skrein, known to Game of Thrones fans as Daario Naharis 1.0, plays the villain of the piece, a guy named Francis Freeman. A superhuman-type himself, Freeman gave Deadpool his superpowers, but also disfigured his face. Expect him to reap the bitter crop of his dark harvest in the movie.

Although plenty of people wondered whether Skrein was making the right career move when he bowed out of Game of Thrones after Season 3 (Michiel Huisman has played Daario since Season 4), the actor has done pretty well for himself, what with this high-profile role and a starring part in The Transporter: Refueled. Still, he’ll always be Daario to me.

h/t Pop Sugar