Coster-Waldau, who recently starred in the sadly-failed TV pilot Virtuality has been cast in HBO’s Game of Thrones, a series based on the George RR Martin series of fantasy novels. I have to confess to not being familiar with the novels at all, so if any of you readers have enjoyed them, let me know! I thought Coster-Waldau gave an interesting performance in Virtuality; it’s a shame we’ll probably never see that story brought to life, since most of the cast have moved on. (Kerry Bishe, who also appeared in Virtuality, has just been given a regular role on Scrubs.)
It’ll be interesting to see if Game of Thrones does well, simply because fantasy is such a hard genre to get right. Take the material too seriously and it comes off as po-faced and inaccessible, but treat it too lightly and it seems immature and cartoonish. Still, if HBO are pumping money into it, at least we know it’ll be visually impressive. Perhaps this could be the next Rome? The BBC co-funded that series with HBO, just as they’re doing with Game of Thrones, so it’s entirely possible.
Shooting starts in Belfast in October 2009.
I for one am very excited for the series. The high quality of the series, and it’s place on HBO are definitely in its favor. The internet, at least, really loves ‘A Game of Thrones’ (and Sean Bean), judging by the top posts and top search terms on my blog recently. Who’d have thought?
I loved him in New Amsterdam, which I just re-watched in its entirety on Hulu. That show was great, it’s a shame (but not a surprise, of course) that Fox let it go.
[...] novels of George R.R. Martin. Headey’s character Cersei is the twin sister of Jaime Lannister (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). From what I’ve read about the role, it should apparently be quite a juicy [...]
Because of this series, I have just begun reading the series and am enjoying it – even though fantasy is not my usual fare. Jaime Lannister is an evil man, so it should indeed be “juicy”… I’m so glad that an actor of NCW’s abilities is being given a third chance to appear on American TV, since FOX managed to hamstring & kill the first two! This series is enough to make me subscribe to HBO!
Cheers pal. I do aprepcatie the writing.