Mark Addy uses his kingly celebrity to honor famous cat, and other stuff

What are Game of Thrones stars doing with their time these days? Let’s start with the big news: Mark Addy, King Robert Baratheon himself, is exercising his royal right to celebrate kitties!

Specifically, he was honoring Gerald, a cat who had become popular with people visiting York Minster cathedral in York, England. Gerald was known to hang out around the cathedral and became so popular that the Dean of York even gave permission for him to be buried in Dean’s Park beside the cathedral.

Naturally, you need a king to send such a legend off right. Addy was on hand to unveil a statue of Gerald created by local sculptor Anthony Bartyla. “It gives me great pleasure to unveil Gerald,” Addy said. “I’ve not seen him – very few people have! So here we go…”

“Nice!” Addy exclaimed after pulling off the cover. “That’s beautiful.” Addy, a Yorkshireman himself, gave Gerald a pet and explained that he had several cats himself that he’d fostered. Cats are “a big part of my life.”

“It’s partly the fact they really don’t care,” Addy said when explained what about cats appealed him. “You can have known them from a kitten and ask them to come see you and they will just walk away. They have their own minds and that’s a great thing to have.”

House of the Dragon showrunners works with Tom Hanks on buzzy sci-fi film

In other Game of Thrones celebrity news, Deadline reports that Apple TV+ has picked up Finch, a new movie from Game of Thrones resident genius Miguel Sapochnik, who helmed such episodes as “Hardhome,” “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter.” The movie is about an robotics engineer (named Finch, naturally) who’s been living in a bunker for years with his dog Goodyear following a cataclysmic solar event that has left the world a wasteland. After building a robot pal, the trio goes outside to see what’s become of the world, and Finch tries to teach his creation the joy of life.

The robot is played by Get Out’s Caleb Landry, while Finch himself is played by certified A-lister Tom Hanks, which means that Sapochnik is working with some fancy people. Apple intends to release the movie around awards season this year. This is only be good for House of the Dragon, where Sapochnik is serving as co-showrunner.

Next up, The Irish Sun talked to Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton) about how his Game of Thrones fame had affected his life. “It’s either Game of Thrones, or Paths to Freedom,” he said about getting recognized. “In Ireland, you’re recognized for different things. Abroad it is Game of Thrones...I met a guy on the canal the other night and he recognized me from an obscure Irish movie I did 25 years ago, and only knows me from that…. Or for some it’s just Rats.”

The actor also reminisced about being at the center of the Game of Thrones whirlwind. “It just became a phenomenon really after season three, that’s when it exploded after a scene called the Red Wedding and the internet kind of lit up,” he said. “There was a very bright spotlight on that show for seven or eight years anyway at least. Anybody who was in it felt a lot of recognition. And it was a wonderful, wonderful experience and it seems so long ago now. I was there for five years and you never knew season to season whether you were going to make it or not.”

Roose Bolton died near the start of the sixth season, and McElhatton “understood” why it was his time to go. “You can tell they needed to move on with that storyline, they needed to get rid of the Boltons and move onto the next thing,” he said. “I was grateful for my time on it, I took it gracefully, thanks for the five seasons and we’ll move on.”

Naturally, he kept his death a secret from the fans. “You can’t and you don’t want to. And you don’t want to ruin it for fans,” he recalled. “When you think about it, there are so many people with that information, three massive crews around the world, thousands of people know the outcome but don’t reveal it, despite all the leaks that happened in the scripts, we want to keep it secret for the fans so it wasn’t difficult. But I didn’t let any of the cats out of the bag.”

Finally, Carice Van Houten talked about one of her favorite moments playing the Red Woman Melisandre on Game of Thrones:

"Maybe one of my favorite scenes to have played on Game of Thrones. Not so much Miss Know It All, but the self doubt, remorse and vulnerability. In general my favorite emotions to act out on celluloid."

Melisandre did kind of bloom as a character I think this is from the scene in “Mother’s Mercy” where she straggles back to Castle Black after abandoning Stannis and his army?

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h/t Wiki of Thrones