Tony Woodhead joins House of the Dragon as a Mallister knight

We know some of the big actors who will be in House of the Dragon, HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series. Paddy Considine is King Viserys Targaryen, who ruled the realm some 180 years before the story we know even begins. Emmy D’Arcy plays his eldest child Rhaenyra, whom he has promised the Iron Throne when he dies. Olivia Cooke plays his second wife Alicent Hightower, who is not okay with that, and so on. Like Game of Thrones before it, House of the Dragon has a lot of characters and they all have complicated names, so best get ready.

And we’re just talking about the main characters. There are also lots of secondary and tertiary players, and lately HBO seems to be casting a bunch of them. The latest is London-based actor Tony Woodhead, who according to his online acting profile will be playing a character named “Ser Rylan Mallister.”

Who is Ser Rylan Mallister? Well, as far as we can tell no such character exists in Fire & Blood, the George R.R. Martin book on which House of the Dragon is based. But House Mallister is a real house: they’re based in the Riverlands and have a generations-long vendetta against the Ironborn, who try to raid their lands. They’re mentioned in A Song of Ice and Fire occasionally. And Tony Woodhead has a bit of a Riverlands look to him, don’t you think? He kind of looks like the Brynden “the Blackfish” Tully, played on Game of Thrones by Clive Russell.

How far back in the Game of Thrones timeline will House of the Dragon go?

But even though “Rylan Mallister” isn’t mention in any of Martin’s books, the keen-eyed folks at Reddit have noted that there is a Lymond Mallister who plays a part in Fire & Blood. He unseats Ser Criston Cole, a key character in this whole drama, at a tournament celebrating the ascension of Viserys Targaryen to the Iron Throne. This the same tournament where Criston Cole defeats Rhaenyra’s uncle Daemon and wins the favor of the young princess, beginning a relationship (allegedly) that will become significant later as the war for the throne heats up.

Perhaps Woodhead is playing Lymond Mallister, who’s name has been changed to Rylan to avoid confusion with characters like Lyman Beesbury and Leanor Velaryon — I told you this show had a lot of names. Anyway, if House of the Dragon intends to depict this tournament, we’ll be meeting some of the characters when they’re quite young, which explains why the show has cast actors to play younger versions of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower.

I know we’re grasping at stray bits of info here but this is the game until we get more solid information…or even a trailer. House of the Dragon will premiere on HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2022.

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