British actor Ian McShane is joining the cast of Game of Thrones in a role that reportedly will have a small amount of screen time but a lot of significance for Westeros.
That’s according to a report from Entertainment Weekly, also confirmed by Variety.
You might remember McShane from the last time he was involved with HBO, as Al “I sure do say ‘cocksucker’ a lot” Swearengen on the western Deadwood. Or you might remember him from my favourite of his roles, Stabby Hobo Santa Claus from American Horror Story: Asylum.
The reports say sources were mum as to who McShane will actually play on Game of Thrones, but there’s a fair chance no one would know who he is anyway, since Season 6 is officially in “not based on a currently existing book” territory.
Me, I hope he plays Bran Stark From the Future who comes back in time somehow to save the Stark family but accidentally picks the wrong year. It’d be a twist no one would ever see coming.
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11 responses to “Game Of Thrones Season 6 Casts Ian McShane In ‘Key’ Role”
I’m calling it. Euron Crow’s Eye. If not I guess Jon Cottington.
Showrunners have scrapped the Aegon subplot by changing the Martells (Trystane heir, no Arianne, no Quentyn quest to Essos, Doran now a pacifist, no indication of secret Targaryen plot) and zero foreshadowing of Connington and Aegon’s survival. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also revealed his stuffed duck tease to be coincidental trolling in a later interview.
I’ll hazard a guess that Lovejoy will be playing Euron Greyjoy.
Has it really been confirmed that Connington and Aegon will not be written into the show? D&D have inside knowledge on future books. If Aegon is not in the show can only assume he doesn’t have a major part to play in future books but that is again even more unfounded speculation.
That is the part I hate the most about the show, by seeing which characters survive and which have been killed off you can kind of infer what will happen in the 6th and 7th books.
I’m worried they have dropped too many plot threads (the ones mentioned above) and we will end up with some hollow shell of a story that could even spoil the books when they finally come out.
Aegon and Co could still make it into the show in season 6, but it would have be right at the start, I’ve always felt the show played a bit loose with storyline timing due to cutting chunks of one character’s plot out to make room for someone else’s or to make it fit for tv.
It hasn’t been ‘confirmed’ in in the sense that Benioff and Weiss haven’t actually said “NOPE!” they’re playing coy. But it’s sensible to assume that plot has been cut, because every other subplot that foreshadows and supports it, has been cut itself or drastically altered.
Tyrion meets Aegon and Connington after trying (and failing) to find Dany in the novels. He’s already met her in the show.
The Martells are intending to marry Arianne to Aegon, once they confirm his identity. Arianne has been cut entirely, because they refer to Trystane as Doran’s heir. Also, Doran’s scheming seems to have been cut to simplify the show, and now he’s just a pacifist; the secret Martell/Targaryen pact may have been scrapped.
The character Jon Connington has not been referred to once on the show, whereas in the novel he’s been brought up a handful of times as a Targaryen loyalist and Rhaegar’s friend, who fled the Seven Kingdoms. If the show drops these strangers on us as the new front-runners with zero foreshadowing, it’ll be a huge cop-out, and narrative blunder.
This, and a handful of other minor things, seem to suggest that Aegon’s plot has been dumped and probably isn’t all that consequential to the events of the books.
They have “dropped” strangers on us before on the show. Cop out? Narrative blunder? I don’t necessarily think so. Aegon’s plot isn’t consequential to the events of the books? I would be really surprised if that is the case.
They’ve dropped secondary and tertiary characters into the cast, but to drop a claimant of the Iron Throne out of the blue with zero foreshadowing is not going to happen this late. The books worked because the clues were there; Jon Connington’s reputation and apparent death, the pact at Braavos, the Golden Company breaking their contract early in the series, etc. Also, we meet Connington’s company through the lens of a familiar character: Tyrion, who has skipped that storyline entirely on the show. All the supporting subplots have been axed or altered to the point where Aegon’s plot has no foundation and it would be a screenwriting mistake to introduce so late.
Benioff and Weiss know how this will end. If they’re killing off characters, or excluding them from the show, it’s safe to assume that their overall impact on the book’s endgame is inconsequential, like Show Myrcella’s death confirming that Book Myrcella will never be crowned and if she survives at all. Show Arianne was axed meaning her queen-maker plot is meaningless, ditto with her mission to Ghost Hill to treat with Aegon (another nail in that coffin). I’ll put money down on Aegon being a red herring, either a pretender of Varys and Illyrio, or his campaign will be unsuccessful, and ultimately meaningless to how the saga ends.
Lovejoy will be a Greyjoy!
Arrrr!
… Victarion?
Randyll Tarly.
Likely to be Crows Eye.Maybe Victarion at a stretch.He’ll always be Al Swearengen to me…
Don’t care whom he’s playing, he’ll be great at it.
Just so long as he gets to call someone a cocksucker at least once on screen.
Great actor. Looking forward to his appearance.
Reports are that Tyrion lannister has been re-cast with McShane due to time conflicts with Peter Dinklage doing more Destiny voice-overs.