Is it okay to discuss casting for the HBO series?

[Boaz]

IMDB says Fichtner is 50... but he's a young looking 50 year old..

I can just picture Kelly calling, "Sta-arks, come out to pla-ay!"

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Um, isn't Pod in his early teens? And Fichtner is... hang on, let me work this out. Fifty-two.

I'm hoping you mean Ilyn Payne...

Yes Ilyn, sorry. I need to get back to rereading the books to freshen up.

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Boaz

IMDB says Fichtner is 50... but he's a young looking 50 year old..

I can just picture Kelly calling, "Sta-arks, come out to pla-ay!"

It's hard to get past some of his more memorable roles, but he's actually got some chops and could probably pull the part off well.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Okay- Emma Watson is an awesome actress, but she's way too old to play Daenerys! What are they thinking?!

I always pictured Petyr Baelish as an Alan Cummings type of guy.

[Boaz]

AU, thanks for correcting my spelling of Daenerys. I don't think you saw the date of my post nor the last line.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by AryaUnderfoot

I always pictured Petyr Baelish as an Alan Cummings type of guy.

Actually, me too. Cummings would be great.

[Centurion]

A bit early to get frustrated, but that's just what i am.

HBO's Rome's just finished, and i just cannot wait for ASoIaF to begin, or even some more info about the upcoming series to appear on the web.

[MemmoN]

For Jon I'd cast myself and I'd grow my hair long, paint my half-breed wolf white and always have corn in my pocket! Plus I'd have a wilding with me who says Har! alot. No name all the way, maybe someone special for tyrion and Cercei.

[AryaUnderfoot]

Originally Posted by Boaz

AU, thanks for correcting my spelling of Daenerys. I don't think you saw the date of my post nor the last line.

Damn you, Boaz! You found my weakness! I'm the most gullible person on the planet. It was the end of a long day at work, and I didn't have time to read your entire post. Sigh. Thank god.

My friend believes that they're going to age everyone because Americans won't stand for child-marriages and all that. It would be unseemly in the land of Britney Spears and Xtina.

[MOUNTAIN THAT READS]

At the very least they would probably age the actors so the viewers didn't notice the cast growing up so quickly. Kind of like they do on all TV shows and movies about high school kids. All the so called 15-18 year olds are actually in their twenties. (And of course we Americans can be a bit prudish)

[Boaz]

Originally Posted by AryaUnderfoot

Damn you, Boaz! You found my weakness! I'm the most gullible person on the planet.

Then I'm the second most... the only reason I did it is because I'd already fallen for an April Fool's joke on a different website. Doh!

MTR, you spelled prudish wrong, it's spelled r-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n... btw, your name still slays me!

[MOUNTAIN THAT READS]

lol. My mistake, I can't believe spell check didn't catch that.

[Fourth Hunter]

Could we please tone down the political rhetoric. It makes me uncomfortable with my moderate self.

[Boaz]

Sorry FH. Just having some fun... I've actually voted republican about 90% of the time.

Now what can I say to put us back on track? Hmmmm.

In addition to the cast, do you have any recommendations for directors, writers (yes, I know GRRM wrote this and he has a strong background in TV script writing, but he has a lot going on so HBO will have some people write the actual dialogue and choose which scenes to film), effects people, costume designers, or anyone else associated with the production of ASOIAF?

[Werthead]

The writers have already been chosen. GRRM will write one episode per season. Everything else will be written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It looks like there will be between 10 and 12 episodes per season (I can imagine AGoT and ACoK being 10 episodes each and ASoS being 12, just to fit everything in). The current bet is that they'll film the series in Eastern Europe, most likely Romania, as it's easily accessible and they'll have access to ruined castle locations, semi-desert areas where they can film the Dornish stuff and colder climes are easily reachable for the stuff in North, plus you have the Black Sea for all the coastal stuff. The other alternative is New Zealand, however, which seems to be a good choice for bigger soundstages, local effects houses (Weta, anyone?) and a decent filming infrastructure.

Directors are likely to be drawn from the HBO pool, which they share between shows like Six Feet Under, Entourage, Rome, Deadwood, Carnivale, The Sopranos and others. People like Julian Farino and Allen Coulter are likely to be among the directors.

Effects houses: Weta (the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy) do effects for TV shows and obviously have experience in doing large-scale effects shots and providing physical objects like weapon and armour, and doing so on a limited budget. It hasn't been confirmed but it's been pretty widely theorised that Rome licensed some Weta technologies in order to do the vast (200,000+ soliders) Battle of Philippi in episode six of Season 2, so there may be an existing relationship that can be used as well.

Costumes and sets will likely be done by HBO's internal departments. Again, it'll probably be the same people who did Rome, and the sets and costumes in that are exemplery.

The biggest problem I forsee is that, given that Rome nearly broke HBO's bank (and has been blamed for the cancellation of Deadwood), ASoIaF may get a reduced budget