Who is Richard E. Grant Playing in GAME OF THRONES?


We might as well start a new UTF column all about Game of Thrones with the amount of news and spoilers hitting every week.

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The show has assembled a pretty stellar cast for its sixth season so far; Ian McShane, Max von Sydow, Freddie Stroma, and now veteran actor Richard E. Grant can be added to the list! We unfortunately don’t know who he’ll be playing since there was no official announcement; it was listed as his most recent work on his online CV (although it’s since been removed) as noticed by Watchers on the Wall. There wasn’t any director listed, either, so we can’t even guess which episodes he’s appearing in. All we know is that Grant will be landing in Westeros or Essos.

Eh, fuck it. We’ll try and guess anyway.

As is commonplace with most of our Thrones coverage, this article will have a lot of spoilers dotted around. I mean, surely you expect spoilers when clicking onto something like this, but we figured that a little warning is a good idea regardless – so get the hell outta here if you don’t want any spoilers!

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Randyll Tarly

And the award for Best Dad in Westeros goes to…

You will have heard all about the head of House Tarly before on Game of Thrones. He’s Samwell’s meaniehead dad who’s pretty much an all-round dick, but is saved from pure hatred due to his skill and experience as one of the best living military commanders. We know that his character will be making his first appearance next season, and while I always imagined him as a big and bulky figure, I could also picture a guy like Grant being great; he’s got that sense of sneery elitism which could be translated into a sense of hyper-masculinity. This really wouldn’t be a bad choice.

Aeron Greyjoy

What? More Greyjoys?

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Theon will obviously be back next season, as well as his sister Yara, and it was recently revealed that Danish actor Pilou Asbaek will be playing their uncle, Euron. Aeron is another uncle and he’s a bit of a religious nut – well, more than a bit. Y’know the whole ‘what is dead may never die?’ culture? That’s a big part of their religion, which worships the ‘Drowned God,’ and it’s all kept up by the Drowned Priests. Aeron used to be your stereotypical badass drunken Ironborn, but he had a religious awakening and ended up as one of ’em priests. He’s a complete fanatic and fits with the traditional Ironborn culture of being a sexist pig, however he’s actually the most likable of the Greyjoy bros.

Now, none of the fans really expected him to make his way into the TV series, so we were all quite shocked when it was spoiled. Aeron’s role in the books is to try and stop Euron from taking the Seastone Chair and becoming King of the Iron Islands (in case you hadn’t already guessed from here and other news, Balon dies), which happens at a big event called the Kingsmoot, where different islanders come together to argue why they should be the king in favour of continuing the Greyjoy line. Since there hasn’t been any official announcement there’s no real idea of how big a role he’ll have, but I think Grant could pull of a very pious, salt-of-the-earth kinda guy.

However, this one is a little unlikely. The Kingsmoot has already been filmed and Aeron was on set, so I think people would have noticed if it was Richard E. Grant.

Izembaro

“Oh, yeah, that guy!”

Winds of Winter spoilers…

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One of the released chapters from The Winds of Winter is titled ‘Mercy’; it’s an Arya chapter, where she’s disguised as a girl (called Mercy) in an actor’s troupe in Braavos, learning from its leader Izembaro. She ends up playing Sansa in the play and has to get raped by someone playing Tyrion, which is kinda weird, and they also play for a party of Lannister emissaries to the Iron Bank. The point of the chapter is so she can kill Raff the Sweetling, one of the guys who was a dick to her in Harrenal. Most fans thought the show would miss this out because the whole Iron Bank part already manifested itself in Mace Tyrell and Meryn Trant’s visit, and the Kingsguard fulfilled Raff’s role in fairly bloody fashion.

However, as oft happens, the fans are wrong in regards to what Game of Thrones will do. They’re casting for a theater troupe (which we’ve known about for months) which is filming this week in Girona, Spain, where Maisie Williams is currently shooting. This character description – which sounds remarkably like Izembaro – seems up Grant’s street.

Grand Theatre Actor/Manager (55 – 70) The larger-than-life leader of a troupe of actors. He specializes in portraying drunken aristocrats. He is a huge presence on stage and rather nasty to his company when off-stage. They’re searching for a character actor with great comedy skills. He appears in three episodes, and is shooting this week in Spain, and the week of November 6th in Northern Ireland.

This would be a wonderfully eccentric role for him to sink his teeth into, and I think he could do it. The big casting has always had an official announcement from Entertainment Weekly; because this didn’t, it could mean that it’ll be more of a minor role like Izembaro. Out of the three options, I’d say this is the likeliest.

Or, y’know, it could be something completely different. There’s still a host of other roles to cast for – namely the Northern Lords – but these seemed to be the ones which would fit him the most.


What do you guys think? Are you excited for an actor of Richard E. Grant’s caliber to be joining Game of Thrones, and if so who will he play? Sound off below!

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