We may be only a couple months out from House of the Dragon season 2, but HBO is already cruising ahead on its next Game of Thrones prequel: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is due to start filming this year. This new series will adapt George R.R. Martin's Dunk & Egg novellas for the small screen. And now, at last, we know who will be playing Ser Duncan the Tall and his intrepid squire, Egg.
That would be Peter Claffey (Dunk) and Dexter Sol Ansell (Egg). The official Max Twitter/X account announced the good news, along with side-by-side pictures of the actors so that our imaginations can start spinning:
Send a raven.
— Max (@StreamOnMax) April 5, 2024
Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell will star in the new @HBO Original Series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, as Ser Duncan the Tall and Egg. Coming to Max. pic.twitter.com/OAXVSQKLrB
Compared to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, the Dunk & Egg novellas are very different sorts of stories. They're much smaller in scale and follow Ser Duncan and his squire (who has some ties to the Targaryen family which I suppose might now be considered spoilers) as they travel around the Seven Kingdoms helping people and taking part in various adventures.
Here's the official description of the spinoff series from HBO:
"A century before the events of “Game of Thrones,” two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros… a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall (Claffey), and his diminutive squire, Egg (Ansell). Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends"
Claffey is an actor and former rugby player who appeared in Bad Sisters and Wreck, and will also feature in season 3 of Vikings: Valhalla. Meanwhile, Ansell has been acting since the young age of 4 and has numerous credits; you may recognize him as young Coriolanus Snow from The Hunger Games prequel movie The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Dunk and Egg are two very well-loved characters among fans, so I'm more than a little excited to see what these two do with them on screen.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight will span six episodes, and is written by George R.R. Martin and Ira Parker. Martin and Parker also serve as executive producers, alongside House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal, Vince Gerardis, Owen Harris and Sarah Bradshaw.
The series is expected to begin filming this June, which means we'll likely be watching it sometime in 2025. Until then, our watch continues.
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