A tiny bit of casting news, British actor Karl Davies has reportedly been cast to play a character named Alton Lannister. He has been seen on set and his CV confirms it (see what happens when you wait to release casting news, HBO?). Davies has appeared on the small screen in the UK in roles in the British soap Emmerdale and more recently in the comedy/drama series Kingdom. This looks to be his first role in a US production.
In the books, there is no Alton Lannister. So it is unclear who Davies may be playing in the show. Reports from the set indicate he may be filling the role of Cleos Frey from the books. Cleos has a Frey father but his mother is a Lannister, so maybe they reversed his parents to give him that last name. In the books, Cleos fights for Jaime Lannister and gets captured by Robb Stark along with Jaime in the Battle of the Whispering Wood. His big role in the story however doesn’t come about until the third book, A Storm of Swords. Assuming Davies is playing the Cleos character, this lends further credence to my theory of them moving up a certain storyline from book three into the second season.
Source: Winter-is-Coming
good looking
ReplyDeleteIf your response was "Who?" when you heard the actor, and then "Who?" when you heard the role he was cast in you are not alone!
ReplyDeleteWith about 200 significant roles in the series for the first 2 seasons, do they really need to create new roles? I'm confused. I mean
Oh, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I was already running through Lannisters in my head trying to figure out who I'd forgot.
ReplyDeleteIt is especially confusing when adding another Lannister can create a whole mess of problems.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't even thought of inheritance order... um.. yeah.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone checked the list of Lannisters GRRM put in ACoK? If he exists, there's where we'll find him.. I'm gonna do that now..
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of a dramatic reason to add another Lannister, but I'm coming up blank. They couldn't be a more incestuous bunch of vipers if they set fire to themselves. Hey...maybe he's a good Lannister. Their version of the family black sheep. :P
ReplyDeleteNo "Alton".. it must be either a mistake or they're making up characters now. Me not want that. But maybe it is Cleos, then I'd be happy
ReplyDeleteHa!
ReplyDeleteI will likely enjoy the casting move and whatever they do with the newly created role in the end. I loved what they did last year so much (99% was perfect to me).
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time I will likely look confused and whine a bit as we fans are prone to doing... XD
I'm in the "it's Cleos renamed " camp.... I don't mind them making the name change to make it easier for people who haven't read the books to make the family connection, though I would have preffered if they'd at least kept his first name Cleos....
ReplyDeleteI agree. I can understand them thinking of the casual fan who doe not follow very closely and has not read the books (never mind daily reading from any of the fansites) and changing the last name to make the familial allegiance easier to follow. However, if it is Cleos renamed I'm not wuite sure I see the point of changing his first name.
ReplyDeleteOh well, not my books, not my series and I won't be bothered by it at all once Season Two airs.Name changes are much smaller things than excluding roles completely, combining roles together to make one larger part, or creating new roles altogether.
You're right. I've been totally in love with the casting in S1, so I will most likely be deeply impressed by this utterly unknown person.
ReplyDeleteWonder what G. R. R. Martin thinks about it? My impression is that he is quite protective of his work, to the extend that he deeply disapproves of people doing fanfics based on his work. I haven't read B5 yet. Is there an Alton there, that maybe they could be laying the foundation for? Drawing him in early...
ReplyDeleteI know GRRM is not a fanfic.. (I can't blame him honestly. It's lose-lose for a writer in the end), but I think he is accepting of changes to his books since HBO purchased the rights to do as they see fit to make a TV series from them... and he has no choice.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall an "Alton", but in fairness I don't put to long-term memory every name of the minor characters. I trust there is NOT an Alton Lannister in the books since Winter from Winter-is-Coming said there was not and they have amazing knowledge and recall of GRRM's world.
I read somewhere that he likes some aspects of the changes D&D have made and in fact he liked the changes made to Osha and the portrayal by Natalia Tena so much that he may think of the series version of Osha while writing for her in the future books.
I don't think he has too much say in any series matter honestly... other than the episodes he writes. Even those are subject to D&D revisions and HBO budgetary constraints of course. D&D do run some things by him maybe - not for acceptance as much as a good sounding board.
I would love a really detailed interview on that one topic - how GRRM feels about the HBO adaptation. We get little snippets here and there in interviews and can glean some of his feelings, but I would love an in-depth interview!
Oh, I absolutelly do not think in the big picture it will bother me either.
ReplyDeleteObjectivelly speaking it can offer narrative solutions from the book to film transition combinng characters and adding new ones, so either tool doesn't bother me all that much (yes, I'm fully expecting Edmure and Blackfish to be one and the same in the show. And to be fair, say giving Dani only one khas rider worked rather well. Granted I wouldn't call Roz as the best example of new character, but you can't always hit a bullseye), and it's par of the course to have to make compromises, therefore there is really not room to complain.
Over all my argument is they've handled all the changes pretty nicely in the first season , I'm willing to give them leeway and not judge before I see the result.
It's just a simple observation, that if it is indeed a version of Cleos, then whichever way you look at it this is a change that seems a little unnecessary.
Don't add more characters, there's enough from the books they can pick up
ReplyDeleteI really don´t see the point of adding more characters as the books have enough to choose from. I´m guessing that Alton will be Cleo Frey. I can understand that they change his last name to Lannister (for those who haven´t read the books it will be so much easier to understand), but why change his first name?
ReplyDeleteIt´s always good to see new castings, but this wasn´t one that I was waiting for. We want to see some Boltons, Ygritte, Gilly and jaquen! :-)
I recognised the face alright but I have no idea who he going to play...maybe it Cleos.... Was never very impressed with him in Emmerdale
ReplyDeleteI recognised the face alright but as to WHO he play no idea...looks right for Cleos, but was never very impressed with is acting to be honest
ReplyDeleteOh god no! .. I really hope this boys acting skills have greatly improved since emmerdale.
ReplyDelete