Games

In an interview with Empire Online to publicise his new TV show, The Following , James Purefoy has confirmed that he will not be appearing in Game of Thrones due to lingering annoyance with HBO over how they ended Rome , and that his co-star Kevin McKidd is of a similar mind. According to Purefoy, he and McKidd decided on this commitment over lunch: McKidd and I had lunch the other day, and I said to him, "Have you been asked to do Game Of Thrones?" And he said, "I'd never do it. Because they stole our fucking show." He worked out that if Rome had run for the entire seven seasons that it should have run, we would only have finished it last year. And he feels that HBO did Game of Thrones instead of us, so they stole our show. I kind of agree with him. I won't be doing Game Of Thrones, even if they ask me. Context: James Purefoy played Mark Antony on HBO's Rome , with McKidd playing the role of Lucius Vorenus. Rome ran for two seasons, airing in 20...

After a significant amount of speculation, HBO has announced that Ciarán Hinds will be playing the role of Mance Rayder in the third season of Game of Thrones (and, based on the books, presumably for several seasons afterwards). Ciarán Hinds is a distinguished Irish actor with a long history on stage, television and film. His film work has included roles in John Boorman's Excalibur , Persuasion , Munich and Miami Vice . On TV, he was a main character in the BBC mini-series version of Ivanhoe and Channel 4's Cold Lazarus (the final work by the famous Dennis Potter) before achieving arguably his career highlight of playing Gaius Julius Caesar in HBO's Rome . Hinds's performance as the infamous Roman leader was flawlessly compelling, making the complex character come to life. Hinds's Caesar is, for my money, the definitive depiction of the character. More recently he played Aberforth Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and was reunited with...