Game of Thrones prequel showrunner is “a genius, completely brilliant”

I’ve been a big fan of Naomi Watts ever since I saw her in her breakout role in 2001’s Mulholland Drive. A couple Academy Award nominations and a few blockbusters later, she’s been cast in HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series Blood Moon, and I couldn’t be happier. She can act, people. The success of the show will likely come down to the quality of the scripts, but I have no doubt that Watts will be able to hold up her end.

Of course, we won’t exactly what she’ll be holding up for a while — HBO only just recently finished filming the pilot for its prequel show, purportedly titled Blood Moon, and Watts is staying mum on the details. “I am literally not allowed to say anything about it,” she told Net-A-Porter in a new interview.

So we’re not getting specifics about the new show, which is set thousands of years before the events of the main series. (At least not from Watts — if you like, fans have snapped some choice stills from the set.) But Watts did fill us in on how she prepared for the role:

"I didn’t start watching [Game of Thrones] until I was approached about this job. But my brother [photographer Ben Watts], who is heavily into it, told me, ‘Under no circumstances are you going to turn this down.’"

Following that, she watched the first seven seasons of the show over three months and “was in – hook, line and sinker.” Good looking out, Ben Watts.

Watts also had some nice things to say about Blood Moon showrunner Jane Goldman, who up to now has mostly been known for her work on movies like Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. Watts described her as “[a] genius, completely brilliant.” I think we can all agree that’s what Westeros needs.

LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 20: Jane Goldman attends the Jameson Empire Awards 2016 at The Grosvenor House Hotel on March 20, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

Although she’s worked in Hollywood for a while, I think it’s fair to say that Goldman isn’t a household name, not in the way that other super-producers like Joss Whedon, Shonda Rhimes or J.J. Abrams have become household names. (Or, now, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss.) Watts, too, has been in the public eye for a while, but has never seemed overexposed. The Net-A-Porter interviewer mentions the “overwhelming normalness” of their discussion, and that no one in the cafe where they talked recognized her. She’s always seemed like an actor first and a star second.

But with all the eyes on it, Blood Moon could raise their profiles quite a bit. “I still have fears about that,” Watts said. “I don’t really know what to prepare for.”

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We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Assuming HBO picks Blood Moon up to series, hopefully the show is good enough to be worth making a big fuss about.

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