The cast of the Game of Thrones spinoff is growing with an incredibly exciting new addition today! Variety reports HBO has confirmed Academy Award nominee Miranda Richardson is joining the prequel cast as a regular.
There are no details yet as to which role the British actress will be playing in the spinoff pilot. She joins Naomi Watts, Jamie Campbell Bower, Josh Whitehouse, Denise Gough, Naomi Ackie, Toby Regbo, Sheila Atim and others in the growing cast.
Richardson is best known to fandom audiences as ethically challenged reporter Rita Skeeter in the Harry Potter world. Richardson has been twice-nominated at the Academy Awards- in 1993 for “Damage” and in 1995 for “Tom & Viv.” This year she’s appearing in Amazon’s adaptation of “Good Omens” as Madame Tracy (medium and Painted Jezebel).
Richardson is a wonderful actress who elevates everything she’s in, so I’m stoked she’s on board with the spinoff. She can play just about anything- comedy or very dark and dramatic- so it’s hard to pin down and speculate what her role will be based just on her casting. Welcome aboard, Ms. Richardson- we’re thrilled to have you!
I’m getting worried… the cast is too good.
Loved her in Sleepy Hollow.
No f*cking kidding! When they landed Naomi Watts, I thought that was a major coup. But Miranda Richardson as well? Wow.
Now, just cast Riley Keough and India Eisley and I’ll be over the moon.
She played a Queen in Blackadder. More of the same, obviously not. Fantastic actress. We so need more info.
Wow! The script must be pretty good or these folks would not be signing on! I’m getting very hopeful!
Or more likely the money. Best of luck to HBO & George, but lightning in a bottle twice? …….. Correct me if I’m wrong but these are just one series projects aren’t they?
Oh this is fantastic news!
Excellent. I first discovered Miranda Richardson through her wonderful portrayal of Rose Arbuthnot in Enchanted April. Rose is a prim church lady, unhappily married to an author of raunchy bodice-ripper romances (Jim Broadbent), who joins three other stifled women to flee dreary, drizzly post-WWI London for a transformative monthly stay, without their men, in a stunning seaside villa in Italy. It’s the absolute pinnacle of chick flicks, for me.
So I was already stoked to know that she’d be playing Madame Tracy in Good Omens. Word is that Neil Gaiman beefed up her role for the TV version, partly to provide more screentime for female characters and partly because of what Miranda Richardson brings to the table in the way of talent. Glad to hear that she’s a hot property these days!
Mr Derp,
That was the first movie I thought of when I read her name. Good actress indeed!
Ten Bears,
India Eisley is so beautiful. She would have been the perfect Lyanna.
She was great in Harry Potter, can’t wait to see her in the prequel.
Just watched this again. Really fun scenery-chewing performance. Pretty underrated movie too.
Exciting cast #2. Her and Naomi Watts are awesome catches for the series.
this is really cool but georgie henley is still who i am most excited to see.
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Precisely. There are online pictures of her with a fur lined parka, and some with a chain link fence behind her, that immediately made me think “perfect Lyanna.”
It would’ve been all the more appropriate to cast her as one of the star-crossed doomed lovers because her mother, Olivia Hussey, played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 definitive movie version of Romeo and Juliet.
I saw it many years later, in an empty hall on a cruise ship. First time a movie made me cry. Luckily nobody was around…
Olivia Hussey as Juliet was the first time I understood what a ‘girl crush’ was. It was still a standard in my 1990s middle school English class, and I could not stop staring at her. ❤ I can even blame her for my lifelong addiction to horror/creepypastas/etc due to looking up movies she was in and finding Black Christmas. 😜
Seriously, this is one of my favorite movies and she is one of the standouts in a perfect cast. This movie put MR on the map for me too, so glad to see her join the cast, still not sure about the timeline taking place thousands of years before GOT… but with MR, i’m starting to become more interested.
WOW. I’ve been a fan since high school, when I saw her in Dance With a Stranger with Rupert Everett. As the young ones say (to quote Pigeon), this is amazeballs.
Nice casting. I also liked her in Sleepy Hollow. She looks similar enough to Naomi Watts that it makes me wonder if they’re not going to be playing relatives of some sort (there’s an 11-year age difference so older/younger sisters maybe).
Love this casting. I always think of her as Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder though. HBO could’ve had fun with that.
I may have the body…of a weak and feeble woman…but I have the heart and stomach of a CONCRETE ELEPHANT!
Her character in Enchanted April has “the face of a disappointed Madonna.” Glue those two descriptions together and you get an interesting sculpture.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned her uber-villain performance in The Crying Game. Indelible impression, that one.
I’m really excited about this casting.
Stringer_Belle,
True!
She’s definitely a great actress but I am still keeping my feet on the ground with the prequel if nothing more than to avoid disappointment given how high the bar has been set.