Game of Thrones has been very lucky in their casting throughout the entire run of the production. Partly due to the BBC being attached to the production during the pre-development, they cast some serious A-list talent from across the pond, from Sean Bean to Charles Dance. And as the show has become a world wide monster phenomenon, they have leveraged it into a run of casting coups, from Dame Diana Rigg to Alexander Siddig, and even managed to attract in actors who originally turned them down in Season 1, because this sort of high fantasy was seen as not serious enough a career choice, like Jonathan Pryce.
Pryce, for one, was pretty honest going into last season about how the success of the show changed his mind on it. If he still looks down upon high fantasy, he certainly isn’t admitting it in interviews. And when it comes to keeping a lid on spoilers, he, and all of the names who might consider themselves a bit bigger than the production, have always played along.
But eventually that string of luck was going to run out. And it seems to have done so with the casting of Ian McShane.
Over the last week or so, we here at WiC have been a little wide eyed about how open McShane has been about the details of his character, considering the conniptions the production has been undergoing to keep everything about Season 6 a secret. We assumed he must not realize how dedicated fans are, and that he thought he was being vague. But that was nothing on the fact that he then went and announced a spoiler in an interview. (One book readers had already put together from his already not-very-vague hints nonwithstanding.) “How is he getting away with that?” Well, we suppose the part is a one-off, so it’s not like they can fire him. But even the one-off parts so far–like Pedro Pascal as Oberyn–have never given away spoilers at this level.
Over the weekend, McShane has continued to talk. And it turns out he’s not just breaking the spoiler taboo. He’s breaking all the taboos when it comes to talking about the show. Speaking to The Telegraph, he bluntly states:
“You say the slightest thing and the internet goes ape,” he says. “I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think get a f—ing life. It’s only tits and dragons.”
Now, whether or not he’s joking doesn’t matter. (Though I’m sure this will most likely be followed up by a statement where he tells us all he was, and to untwist our knickers and so forth.) The fact of the matter is, even if actors think Game of Thrones is nothing more than nonsensical fantasy and gratuitous sex, they do not say this out loud. Ever. It goes against the aura the show has built–that even though it has dragons, zombie killers and high fantasy tropes like Princesses and Knights and swords and sorcery, it is about far more than that. It is myth making for our era, and a vehicle for discussing social issues, from political machinations to the patriarchy to climate change.
And I suppose they have been very lucky that up until this, every actor has been willing to buy in and play along. But sooner or later they were going to wind up with one who refused to behave. McShane also admitted he originally started to say yes to the show because he had no idea how it worked. He thought he’d get to actually work with the other high end actors who once populated Westeros.
“They asked me if I wanted to do Game of Thrones and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll be able to see my old pals Charlie Dance and Stephen Dillane’ and they said, ‘No, we’ve killed them off.’ I wasn’t sure whether I could commit, but then they said it would only be for one episode, so I said, ‘So that means I must die at the end of it. Great, I’m in.’ ”
Everyone will probably assume that’s a spoiler too. Whether or not it is…well, I suppose if we wait until next week, he’ll be sure to give that away too.
The entire interview is, as the British are so fond of understating, full of “refreshingly rude” remarks of this nature, not just denigrating the show he’s about to be in, but the ones he’s appearing in now, and his fellow actors as well. He sneers at Jada Pinkett Smith and the entire #OscarsSoWhite controversy, clearly ignorant that the latter actually developed independently online the year before, and that the Smiths merely jumped on the bandwagon this year. Of his role in Doctor Thorne, he rolls his eyes at the idea of having read the novel before appearing in the show–he only bothered with the synopsis. He also says he only took the role because it’s being produced by an American, not because he cares a fig for high end British productions. He doesn’t actually insult American Gods, but that’s because the interviewer doesn’t ask him about it directly. Not to worry, they’ll get their turn. By this time next year, he’ll be STARZ and Neil Gaiman’s PR headache.