Game of Thrones is a boon to pretty much everyone who works on it. Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Sophie Turner…they’ve all gotten huge opportunities out of it. But they all had an advantage: they got to speak English on the show.
That wasn’t the case for Jason Momoa, who made a splash in season 1 when he played Khal Drogo, who spoke only Dothraki. Fans loved him, but apparently he had a difficult time getting jobs afterward, as he explained to Jimmy Fallon during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show:
So people in Hollywood didn’t think Momoa spoke English? I guess he could take that as a compliment — his performance as Drogo was just that good. It may not be a compliment he wanted, though.
Of course, Momoa ended up being perfectly fine, thanks in part to Zack Snyder casting him as Aquaman in Warner Bros.’ DC movies. Sure, Justice League was a bit of a dud, relatively speaking, but you can bet that Momoa got well-paid, and now everyone knows he’s capable of speaking something other than Dothraki. Aquaman, his solo movie, will be out this December.
Next up, The Hollywood Reporter has it that Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) will appear in The Dirt, an upcoming biopic about the rise of ’80s metal band Motley Crue. He’ll play Mick Mars, the band’s lead guitarist. This is another development for Rheon, who followed up his time as the vicious Ramsay Bolton with a role as Adolf Hitler. Now he’s playing a rocker in the drug-addled hair metal scene of the ’80s. Slowly but surely, he’s inching his way toward lead roles in romantic comedies, one degree at a time.
In other casting news, Entertainment Weekly reports that Syfy has cast Hannah Waddingham, best known to Game of Thrones fans as the shame bell-ringing Septa Unella, in Krypton, its flashy show about Superman’s home planet. She’ll play Jax-Ur, a scientist determined to bring about radical change as the leader of a terrorist group called Black Zero. Interestingly, in the comics, this character is a man.
It may be hard for Game of Thrones fans to picture the woman who played Septa Unella without a robe and a grudge, but of every actor who’s been on the show, few look as different out of costume as Waddingham:
LONDON, ENGLAND – JANUARY 21: Hannah Waddingham attends the National Television Awards at 02 Arena on January 21, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)
That’s rather a million miles from Unella:
Finally, Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy) appeared on an episode of the podcast Griefcast, talking about the death of her father in 2015. It’s a nice, relaxing, contemplative listen for those interested.
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