Sophie Turner joins time-traveling romantic comedy, and other actor news

(Photo by Amy E. Price/Getty Images for SXSW)

Sophie Turner continues to build her career beyond Game of Thrones with a role in Time Freak, an upcoming romantic comedy about a physics student named Stillman (Asa Butterfield) who creates a time machine after his girlfriend Debbie (Turner) breaks up with him. Along with his best friend, Stillman travels back in time to try and fix the mistakes he made in the relationship.

It sounds like a fun role for Turner, although I can’t help but be reminded of the whole Hold-the-Door time traveling fiasco from this past season of Game of Thrones. Careful, Stillman: you don’t want to accidentally reduce Sophie Turner’s vocabulary.

Shifting gears a bit, according to the Daily Mail, actor and strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (Gregor “the Mountain” Clegane) has announced he has Bell’s palsy, a nerve condition that results in paralysis of one side of the face. Generally speaking, Bell’s palsy clears up on its own in a month or two, so hopefully the Björnsson will be back in fighting shape before long. Also, talking about him gives us an excuse to post his latest crazy feat of strength: lifting giant stone balls and putting them on a platform.

This particular feat regained Björnsson the title of “Europe’s Strongest Man,” which he lost in 2016 but held for two years before that. Bell’s palsy ain’t nothing to this guy.

In cast members whose characters are dead, Richard Madden (Robb Stark) talked to Digital Spy about his role in Oasis, a pilot produced by Amazon and currently available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. Madden plays Peter Leigh, a chaplain who leaves the planet Earth to live on a space colony after the death of his wife. So he’s a space priest, basically.

The weird thing is that Oasis is one of five Amazons pilots currently available to watch, and Amazon will only order a full season if it gets a good response. “It feels very… I don’t want to say X Factor-ish but it does feel kind of like that, in a strange way, and I wonder if that’s the way that television’s going to move forward,” Madden said.

SPOILERS FOR OASIS FOLLOW

There’s another Game of Thrones connection here: the pilot also stars Mark Addy, who GoT fans will remember as King Robert Baratheon. Unfortunately, Addy’s character dies pretty early on (another parallel), although Madden would love to have him back. “It was an absolute dream – I love Mark to pieces,” Madden said. “I’m desperately trying to work out a way that we can get him back. Do we do flashbacks?”

Finally, Metro reports that Natalie Dormer (the dearly departed Margaery Tyrell) is one of the frontrunners to play the next Doctor in Doctor Who, at least according to betting website Ladbrokes. According to the Ladbrokes leaderboard, only Broadchurch’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge has a better chance than her. Metro has some ridiculous argument about why Dormer can’t play the Doctor because female characters are always strong and the Doctor is flawed…or something…It’s nonsense, and we’re firmly in favor of Dormer taking on the iconic role.

h/t Deadline