Miranda Richardson Joins HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel

Naomi Watts leads the cast of pilot, which is set to go into production this summer

Miranda Richardson
HBO

A few weeks before “Game of Thrones” begins its final season, HBO has added another resident of Westeros to its prequel pilot: “Harry Potter ” alum Miranda Richardson.

No character details are currently available for any of these parts on the prequel pilot, which is currently untitled (unless you are going by Martin’s recent blog post) and set to go into production this summer. But we do know lead Naomi Watts has been cast as a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret.

Along with Watts and Richardson, the cast includes Josh Whitehouse, Naomi Ackie (who will next appear in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars” franchise), Denise Gough (“Guerrilla,” “Angels in America”), Jamie Campbell Bower (“Twilight,” “Mortal Instruments”), Sheila Atim (“Harlots”), Ivanno Jeremiah (“Black Mirror”), Georgie Henley (“The Chronicles of Narnia”), Alex Sharp (“To the Bone”) and Toby Regbo (“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”).

Ordered to pilot last year, the project from Martin and “Kingsman” screenwriter Jane Goldman is set thousands of years before the events of the current “Game of Thrones” series in the era known as the “Age of Heroes.”

According to HBO, the drama “chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend … it’s not the story we think we know.”

Goldman wrote the pilot from a story she developed alongside Martin. She will serve as showrunner and will executive produce alongside Martin, James Farrel, Jim Danger Gray, Vince Gerardis, Sara Lee Hess, and Daniel Zelman. SJ Clarkson will direct the pilot and also executive produce. Chris Symes is co-executive producer.

Along with the part of Rita Skeeter in the “Harry Potter” film franchise, Richardson is best known for her role as Queen Elizabeth I, aka Queenie, in the British television comedy, “Blackadder.” Other credits include Lady Mary Van Tassel in “Sleepy Hollow,” the voice of Mrs. Tweedy in “Chicken Run,” and Vanessa Bell in “The Hours.”

She can currently be seen in Sky’s 10-part series “Curfew,” starring Sean Bean and Robert Glenister and will next appear in Amazon’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “Good Omens”

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