Fantasy a new reality for Game’s latest participants
After the bloodletting of last season, several new characters are joining the cast of Game Of Thrones which returns to SoHo on April 13. TV Guide ’s Julie Eley caught up with some of the newcomers at the show’s press day in London.
‘‘Keeping that sense of charm and fluidity and the Latin oomph while you are in a wheelchair is tough because you use the whole body to express yourself. It was a good challenge.’’
ALEXANDER SIDDIG
Game Of Thrones newcomer Alexander Siddig knows a thing or two about politics – hardly surprising considering his uncle is former Sudanese prime minister Sadiq al Majhd.
Just don’t expect him to draw on his family connections for his role as Doran Martell, a man who needs all the political acumen he can muster as head of the Dorish people, when the new season starts on SoHo this week.
‘‘I would never do that to my poor family,’’ says Siddig.
‘‘Yes, my uncle used to be the prime minister of Sudan, but he is always in and out of prison. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t . . . I should never correlate the two because it might be dangerous for him. They’re still trying to put him in prison and he’s a very old man. So, yes, it’s better just to not give them the ammo, so I never make it part of this thing.’’
This ‘‘thing’’ is a global TV phenomenon – HBO’s most watched and illegally downloaded show, and its most controversial, generating complaints for its levels of sex, violence and nudity.
Siddig, best known for his role as Dr Julian Bashier in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ,isoneofa number of actors joining the series following the death of several prominent characters last year, including Ygritte, the flame-haired Wilding who thought Jon Snow knew nothing, Hand Of The King Tywin Lannister and King Joffrey.
But while most of the newcomers were able to set their own agenda, Siddig was hampered by his character’s relationship to Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal), the brother who was killed when he squared off with Gregor Clegane in a fight to determine Tyrion’s fate at the end of last season.
With Doran confined to a wheelchair, copying Pascal’s extravagant Latin style was far from easy.
‘‘Pedro’s way of playing it is very much how I had to play it so he set the tone,’’ says Siddig. ‘‘Keeping that sense of charm and fluidity and the Latin oomph while you are in a wheelchair is tough because you use the whole body to express yourself. It was a good challenge.’’
Another challenge, for Doran at least, was managing the Sand Snakes, Oberyn’s hot-blooded and vengeful bastard daughters played by Jessica Henwick, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers and New Zealand’s Keisha CastleHughes.
‘‘They were fantastic. Keisha and I have worked together before.
‘‘She was the Virgin Mary to my Gabriel (in 2006’s The Nativity Story ) and we had a great time, so I knew her very well,’’ says Siddig.
‘‘On screen, I would hate to have them as daughters. These are the most complicated little children I have ever met in my entire life.
‘‘They are vicious, and brilliant at being vicious, and have been taught how to fight and kill at 12. ‘‘So they are little tiny drone jets that deliver missiles. They are going to be great fun. I think they are going to be audience favourites.’’
Castle-Hughes wasn’t at the Game Of Thrones press day in London, but Henwick and Sellers were. While both were clearly excited about the series, 19-year-old American Italian actress Sellers did admit to some early fears about the nudity clause in her contract.
‘‘I was absolutely terrified at first because I have a scene where I take my top off, and I was really freaked out about that,’’ says Sellers, who starred alongside Rachel Weisz and Game Of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham in The Whistleblower .
‘‘They told me it would be a closed set, and as soon as I got there it was a closed set, and it was really chilled and relaxed. I was positively surprised because everyone was very respectful. There were only a few people and it was very quiet. I felt 100 per cent at ease.’’
But even when there is no nudity, the sisters’ clothes leave little to the imagination. ‘‘All our clothes are Dorish, so nudity is in the eye of the beholder, really,’’ says Henwick, who goes on to defend the addition of nipples on the sisters’ warrior armour.
‘‘It was because it was moulded on a mannequin, so the mannequin had nipples on it,’’ she explains.
‘‘I’ve got to be honest, in the lighting, my first costume fitting, I didn’t notice it. I didn’t notice it until we were in the bright, wonderful Spanish light [where part of the series was shot] and I was like, ‘Hmmm, that’s weird. What are those? I didn’t see those before’.’’
While all three sisters are known for their fighting skills, they will be hard pressed to compete with another show newcomer.
DeObia Oparei plays Doran Martell’s bodyguard and chief of police. The former London-born, Sydney street performer and stripper is gearing himself up for criticism at the casting of a black actor as the axe-wielding Areo Hotah.
‘‘In the books, Areo is white and so there are those fans who think he should be white,’’ says Oparei, whose first major film role was as Le Chocolat in Moulin Rouge .
‘‘I think it’s a good conversation to have on why is this character being played by a black actor when it was always written for a white character. ‘‘We’re having this thing now with Idris Elba possibly playing Bond and people saying Bond should be white. We’re shifting. There is a paradigm shift going on.
‘‘We are now beginning to go, ‘Let me cast you because you personify [the role]. You don’t have to be black, you don’t have to be white. Let me cast you because there is something about the way that you portray that [character] that really sings for me’.’’
And if you don’t agree, you can always take it up with Areo Hotah and his axe. New episodes of Game of Thrones will be simulcast at 1pm on Mondays on SoHo from April 13. Prime-time replays air at 8.30pm.