George R.R. Martin gives us a peek at his cut Game of Thrones cameo. “I never did find time to do another cameo, but I suspect the show was better for it.”
Although Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons, A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin never made a cameo appearance. He’s made them in other shows — did you ever see him as a zombie author on Z Nation? — but the stars never quite aligned for the show he created.
Or rather, they did align, and then they fell out of the sky. Martin actually did make an appearance in the original pilot for the show, playing a Pentoshi magister who attends the wedding of Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it into the final cut. Writing on his Not a Blog, Martin gave us a look at what we missed out on:
George R.R. Martin Ian McNeice
The hats are everything.
Next to Martin is Ian McNeice, who played Illyrio Mopatis in the original pilot. In the version we got, Illyrio is played by Roger Allam. So what happened? As the cast and crew explains in the oral history book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series, the original pilot just didn’t work and had to be heavily reshot. That included recasting the role of Daenerys Targaryen, who was originally played by Tamzin Merchant. It all worked out pretty well, but it did mean we never got to see George R.R. Martin rocking his Pentoshi outfit, which definitely would have inspired some great cosplay had it made it to air.
There’s always House of the Dragon…
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