Giving an interview to Blastr, Alexander Siddig talks about winning the role of Prince Doran on Game of Thrones, the ladies of Dorne, and how he developed his character.
Siddig also discusses being a fan favorite for the role long before he was cast:
I was told by one of the producers that there was an online forum where fans suggested who they would like to play characters and I was thrilled to find out that I was one of the names on the list for Doran. It was exciting, but then terrifying, because I had to play the guy right because so many people expect me to! I was really honored they even thought of me. It’s always astonishing as an actor – especially one who operates below the radar – that anyone knows who you are at all. I generally have a career as a supporting actor and as such you tend to stay low level and unknown. Obviously, Star Trek and 24 get you out there a little bit, but I’m still trying to make my mark.
Siddig was easily one of our favorites, leading the list of picks for Doran back when we did our casting speculation post at the old site. It’s true, Siddig was on most people’s fancasting lists for the part, and forums and fan-friendly sites around the web were thrilled about the casting.
He says he based his audition and performance somewhat on Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn, since they’re brothers. Then he added his own twists, as “Doran couldn’t be quite as dramatic or quite as romantic because my character is the ruler and [Oberyn] wasn’t a ruler. Oberyn could afford to misbehave in a way that my character cannot. There’s a difference there,” Siddig says.
As we saw in “The House of Black and White,” Doran appears to be in no rush to drag his region of Dorne into the war. Siddig says, “I don’t think he gets out very much, because he’s a little bit ashamed of the fact that he’s meant to be a masculine guy in a really macho culture.” He also describes his character as a “pretty equivocal, pragmatic, wise ruler.”
As for the women of Dorne, Siddig refers to Ellaria Sand as “my sparring partner” and says, “I have to look over my shoulder the whole time that she doesn’t do something unpleasant. It was great fun.”
As for Doran’s vengeful nieces, the Sand Snakes, he says, “The three nieces are just astonishing and because they are family, I love them even though they are problem children. They were trained by Oberyn to be warriors with each in a different discipline. They were amazing as I watched them working out on set.”
Swing by Blastr to read the full interview for sure, it’s a good read.
For some reason I thought he was Egyptian, but he was born in Sudan.
Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi
Add a few random Zs and that’s a name worthy of Meereen!
5 seconds of screentime and Im already sold..
That look between him and Areo Hotah had me laughing my ass off
I was absolutely a huge fan of Dr. Bashir in Star Trek. HUGE. When I read that he was going to play Doran Martell I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to see him on the episode. He didn’t disappoint. Welcome to the greatest show ever for HBO.
Doran was great, but the rest of the Dorne story feels like just a big missed opportunity.
I never actually liked Bashir that much as a character to start, but the producers did a great thing by spotting the potential for Bashir and O’ Brien scenes. Bashir definitely grew as a character as the show went on.
He doesn’t have a very long filmography but he does bring great qualities to the parts he plays, maybe it helps that we don’t see him on TV so much as some omnipresent actors. He’s like Anton Lesser (Qyburn) who doesn’t generally play lead roles but is a top rate character actor.
http://winteriscoming.net/2015/04/22danys-body-double-to-get-her-own-role-on-game-of-thrones
is this true?
I have learned that WIC is spectacularly wrong many times….
grr, he (or the editors) got it wrong about who got killed by Lannister riffraff. Elia (not Ella) wasn’t Doran’s daughter but his sister. It hurts my nitpicking heart to see my favorite new castmember not fully understand his character’s family background.
He was alright in the short scene so far. I wouldn’t call his performance “great” just yet.
Very happy to see Siddig join the cast. Really liked his Dornish accent, and his Doran seems weary, almost bitter. You get the sense he’s spent years butting heads with his hot-headed family members. He and Hotah have a nice rapport too. Looking forward at how this storyline will end up.
HelloThere,
I imagine she’ll a Dothraki handmaiden or Mereneese Citizen #4.
Of course, it could be fluff, either perpetrated by someone else or herself (like the guy who told the internet he was playing Thoros of Myr).
At any rate, it’s kind of funny how in every picture she’s turning up the blank model look, even in the shot where she’s “goofing off” with the other stand-ins.
HelloThere,
What a crappy article.
Isn’t she in episode 3? I won’t say who, since it’s a spoiler, but whoever watched the screener can guess who I’m referring to. It fits with being just a “minor role.”
Simeon,
lol let’s just say she was well-cast. (It’s basically a cameo, not worth reporting on. I don’t blame the actress for fluffing herself up for promotional purposes but it’s not that interesting.)
And people need to let Val go. I liked her too but she isn’t happening.
Sue the Fury,
tbh, I could care less if she is in the show or not… it was just an observation.
Im not one of those people who think shes the future queen or whatever…
Here’s the original Metro article causing the random speculation: http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/20/meet-rosie-mac-the-official-body-double-for-daenerys-targaryen-in-game-of-thrones-5158674/
HelloThere,
Isn’t she just going to play
since I’m not going to watch the episode until it’s really out, I’m going to assume she’s well-cast in a way a number of minor female roles have been well-cast.
I didn’t recognize him in kingdom of heaven. He was some sort of advisor for Saladin in the movie.
Stark Fan,
honestly Kingdom of Heaven is the only movie in which I’ve seen him before… but I loved him in it 🙂
minty,
You might like him in “Syriana”.
Xanth,
The Dorne story hasn’t even really started yet…
I actually saw him in Kingdom of Heaven long before I saw Deep Space Nine. Just that role alone made me a huge fan of his (he’s utterly fantastic in KoH), and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more roles. His casting as Doran made me leap up and down. 🙂
I was so looking forward to the past episode since we were finally getting to Dorne, but it was far too short. Hopefully he gets some meaty scenes in episodes to come.
Xanth,
And you can tell this by about five minutes of one episode?
My first exposure to Mr. Siddig was in an episode of MI5/Spooks. I remember thinking what a terrific job he did at the end of the show.
I was a huge fan of Alexander Siddig before (Star Trek, Kingdom of Heaven, Syriana) and was BEYOND psyched that they actually cast him! From his first appearance, seems like he’s going to knock it out of the park 🙂
KG,
Actually, and I timed it, it was 2 minutes and few seconds… They really need to start showing more Dorne.
Jaime’s girl,
That’s my favorite line in the books and I can’t wait to hear him deliver it.
mariamb,
eeeeeeek! 🙂
Also, I went and read the full article.. these guys did not have an expert/nerd check their stuff. Elia was Doran’s sister not daughter, Jaime is spelled Jaime not Jamie, Nikolaj’s name has a K, not all the sand snakes are Ellaria’s daughters, the list goes on…
But none of that detracts from Alexander’s perspective 🙂
Good, now we need Michael Fassbender to be cast as Euron Greyjoy for S6.
Give this man more screen time, he’s phenomenal.
What a fantastic and unexpected attitude for an actor to have! That line first surprised me and then made me grin. It won over my affection, that’s for sure. I have a deep-seated dread of becoming famous (not that it is likely to happen, mind you, but just the thought of it is weirdly upsetting to me), but I never would have expected an actor to draw a mental line at a certain level of fame. Most charming.
So charming, in fact, that I am thoroughly willing to overlook his misunderstanding of his character’s relationship to Elia. :^)
He’s already one of my favourite characters in just that single part he had… I’m sure he’ll end up being my number one if we get to see him more.
They actually have my curiosity piqued with Dorne. I was definitely in the camp hoping that this stuff would be cut, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect that 1) cutting Arianne and 2) setting one of the main character’s stories there might make it work for me.
At any rate, Siddig is a very good performer, and he probably could make this entertaining if it was storyless fluff. Somehow, I don’t think that is going to happen. And having a scion of Doran’s favorite family present might make this all the more intriguing: I can imagine all sorts of ways that they can do
story very well with Doran as a foil, and particularly with Siddig giving us Doran’s foil.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Dorne. It is so beautiful. I find the show’s Dornish accent slightly mentally distracting. If all the Dornish speak the common tongue, why do they have that particular accent? If they have a native language, why don’t they speak it when they go back home? Then again Tyrion and Littlefinger’s accents don’t bother me, so I’ll just roll with it.
Finally an interview with him!
I loved him as Bashir (in DS9) and was super excited by his being cast as Doran (and Jonathan Pryce as High Sparrow). His really short scene was not a disappointment and I look forward to his scenes in later episodes!
John M W,
Another role , although I forget the name of his character, is on “DaVinci’s Demons”.
I believe Siddig retains a mentor relationship to DaVinci and due in the upcoming episodes.
bluegoldrose,
Me too ( :
Why are there different accents throughout the UK? 40 years ago, Londoners could tell what part of London people lived given their accents. The Liverpool accent made so famous by the Beatles was yet again distinctive: and when the 9th Doctor was asked why he sounded like he was from the west counties if he was from another planet, he retorted that most planets have a west.
You can ditto that for the US. The Southern drawl (and the ability to speak at fewer than two words an hour) are extremely distinct from the accents in New England (and the ability to speak more than two words per second).
Now, these things have gotten reduced in the last few decades thanks to television and a greatly increased tendency for people to move far from where they grew up. However, in a medieval/rennaisance level society, regional accents and dialects would be very pronounced throughout a country the size of Westeros.
Yeah, they might make something of it. This might have been the nadir of Crows, but I have an irrational hunch that I will not be wishing I could get back the “Dorne” hours of my life the way that I did after I read the book.
Nice name, by the way. We would have named our daughter that: but we had a son instead!
Flora Linden,
I thought he had a nice role in Cairo Time. Although the movie is a different genre that what I generally watch, I stayed through the whole thing mainly ’cause of Siddig. And I enjoyed it very much.
Does anyone else think that Bronn is going to part ways with his head at the hands of Areo Hotah? The show does a good job of eliminating non-essential characters, but they’ve chosen to keep Hotah, whose only really memorable scene from the books was his dramatic slaying of Aerys Oakhart as he tried to abduct the princess. With Jaime and Bronn taking Oakhart’s place, it’s not hard to guess which one is more on the chopping block.
HelloThere,
She’s probably the whore pretending to be Dany in Volantis. I believe Jorah was with her when Tyrion arrives
@Hislocal: Does that mean Bronn never does get his castle? :/
Interesting article. I always like looking at new actors and what they think of the show. He seems to have put a lot of thought into his relationship with Ellaria/SSs/Dorne.
I hope we’ll be able to see Dorne in the coming episodes. It would be nice to see the capital city/country in its entirety.