Vee

I am really impressed they got Jonathan Pryce. The newbies introduce themselves:

New castmembers unveiled at Comicon. Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) as Obara Sand. The incredible Alexander Siddig (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Syriana, etc.) as Doran Martell. The great Jonathan Pryce (Brazil, etc) as "the High Sparrow". Nell Tiger Free as the new Myrcella Baratheon, who is More at the link.

Bleeding Cool is running a report from Comicon where Sam Raimi has allegedly said they've taken meetings with Maisie Williams to play the female lead (Ellie) in the film adaptation of the hit video game The Last of Us. Which I have been meaning to play for ages. In, uh, other Stark kids news, I guess Isaac Hempstead-Wright is out promoting his animated film The Boxtrolls.

Edited: The above link works now. I also have to get back to the Telltale RPG, which just put out a new episode.

Today is the GOT panel at Comicon, so before the impending deluge here is a brief round-up of a couple new recent things. Vulture on alleged plans for Season 5 filming, etc. Not really spoilerish, as I avoid those like the plague. Myrcella is rumored to be aged up. Whale Rider star Keisha Castle-Hughes and Tania Raymonde, who most know as Michael Emerson's adopted daughter on Lost but who I know best from a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle many years ago, are both apparently up for roles as one or several of Oberyn Martell's daughters. George R.R. Martin writes back to a 13-year-old fan who wants to help save the wolves. In other news, Arya Stark must add another name to her list of death: Maisie Williams is not happy with British Airways.

I can't remember the details and I'm too lazy to go check my Kindle and Zimmer's book for any more. IIRC she didn't want to take a pay cut or work in Peapack (like a lot of people) and she was upset that RPG, who she was close with, was leaving, so she split. That's the story I vaguely remember, it could be wrong. And the headache Beth Ehlers had become went with her, but I still thought they did Harley wrong the way she exited, as messy as the character had become thanks to both show and actress.

Gwendoline Christie is rumored to be playing the baddie in Star Wars. May have been the role initially intended for Benedict Cumberbatch.

The truly insane thing was Wheeler refusing to name the show and all but assuring everyone that it would be "Guiding Light by another name" and she kept calling it "a gathering of friends" or something. Who the hell would go near that kind of potential litigious nightmare, even if it wasn't shot in Peapack on handycams with a bunch of truly desperate ex-soap stars in their rumpled clothes with no hair and makeup? You look at what became of that rich tapestry of old, old history and it's very sad to me. I would love to hear more details about the plans for "The New Guiding Light," Wheeler's failed reboot of the show from the beginning, which Zimmer only talks about in very general terms in her book. As for backstage shenanigans, according to Zimmer at least I think there's nothing that can beat Beth Ehlers, who seemed to bed or want to bed most of her leading men in the last ten or fifteen years. I think she implies that Ehlers took a run at the (gay?) dude playing Cyrus as well - the one now on Looking.

Carl will be pleased to know Sophie Turner has a movie. Trailer at the link. Ygritte also has a scary movie.

I remember hearing that a lot of people loved Shayne and Dinah. I personally never understood why the show moved away from Mallet and Dinah until the last episode. And Shayne and Marina with Branson and Mandy Bruno, well, they were great as young teens, but later on? Mallet and Marina was just disgusting. I know, the actors were/are together IRL but still. That's when GL just started turning into some weird, quasi-religious guerilla hangout camp for Ellen Wheeler and actors who she overidentified with their characters and vice versa. Like a cult.

[!@#$%^&*] Sandy. [!@#$%^&*] everything about the John Conboy era. That was some of the weirdest [!@#$%^&*] I have ever seen and I lived through Malone's second run at OLTL with the magic diamond and the Indiana Jones theme park ride in the basement of Llanfair. Marty West was infamous for being outed as having performed on a gay fetish website - some sort of oil wrestling thing. There were pix all over the Net of him, under a pseudonym, in some sort of tiny thong. Very good-looking guy but he couldn't act and was incredibly gay. He was supposedly Conboy's boytoy, or at least the object of his unrequited affection. Billy Kay, who I liked a lot in the role, went on to play gay in L.I.E. with Paul Dano and Brian Cox, but I've never seen the guy again.

She was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I loved her as April O'Neil. I saw that movie in the theater like three times.

As ever, Bleeding Cool is claiming the Series 8 opening sequence is patterned after a fan video and credited as such in the leaked materials. Serious grain of salt for me, but the original looks nice.

New long trailer for Series 8. Extensive scripts and footage for 8 have been leaked online and to the British tabs, but I've been ignoring it all.

I think Robb is mostly there to be the heroic archetype who falls. Nice guy and I cared about his story, but it never occurred to me that he was anything but a stalking horse for the true underdogs - Jon, Arya, Sansa, Bran, etc. That's how he was designed.

Really? Do you have their petition with you?

If you dismiss him that easily, what's to stop him (or the users of the actual TV show thread) from dismissing you?

Brief scene teaser for Season 5.

I'm a little surprised Sally Kirkland's crazy ass said no. What does Victoria Wyndham do all day, just sculpt?

I don't think anyone could remember Barbara Rhoades for anything, honestly - I don't think it was a Maria Arena Bell type situation or anything. It seemed like such a random choice. And RC and FV, in my experience, generally go for daytime names vs. primetime (even Donna Mills, one of the rare outliers, is mostly known for a primetime soap). So I doubt it was like 'ooh, she has some primetime credits from 1975.'

She would've easily been better than Barbara Rhoades, who had her moments but was mostly just very awkward IMO. Or you could've gone really nuts and dug up Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott from Dark Shadows, but I digress...

Someone said some time ago that JFP and/or Guza had tried to snag Colleen Zenk when ATWT went down in 2010, to use her as the recast Bobbie Spencer on GH. Tony Geary, who had stepped in years prior when Jill and Megan McTavish had tried to send Bobbie off to Ferncliff and can Jackie Zeman to speed the ascent of Jensen Buchanan's Nurse Melissa during their brief reign, vetoed it again. I do often wonder if Colleen would've made a better evil Irene Manning on OLTL in 2011 - she's played Roger Howarth's mother before, but I'm not sure she could sell being Erika Slezak's contemporary.

Oh, I remember Michael Maitland on DS very well. He was a trip on the show - this bitchy little evil kid who seemed to take off, and it was almost like they didn't want to get rid of him based on some of the twists and turns, like when I think he was the final form of the Leviathan child before Jeb Hawkes who decided he did not want to "die" and grow into the adult. I was sorry to see him go.

Who wrote this? Pam Long?

Even with that [!@#$%^&*] hair Lynn Herring lights up any room.