We heard last year that HBO’s untitled Game Of Thrones prequel will star Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehouse, with both of them playing characters we don’t know anything about, but now HBO has announced a bunch of other actors who will appear on the show and then die in gruesome or tragic ways. This comes from Deadline, which says the prequel show’s cast is now getting Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Jamie Capbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Georgie Henley, Alex Sharp, and Toby Regbo, many of whom already have experience with the fantasy genre and/or swords and stuff. Also, Naomi Ackie in particular is primed for a nice career explosion, because—in addition to this—she recently wrapped what is apparently a big role in a little film called Star Wars: Episode IX (though it is also untitled, so it technically won’t be called that for long).
Arguably the biggest name joining the series, though, is someone who will be working behind the scenes. According to that same Deadline story, the pilot episode for the show will be directed by S.J. Clarkson, a veteran of Netflix’s The Defenders and Jessica Jones. Clarkson was tapped to direct the next Star Trek movie back in April, which would’ve made her the first woman to direct a film in that series, but that Star Trek project has reportedly fallen apart since then. Deadline says HBO actively recruited Clarkson after her schedule opened up, so apparently Star Trek’s loss is Westeros’ gain.
This prequel series takes place thousands of years before the original series, and it was written and created by Jane Goldman with very little useful input from George R.R. Martin.