I'd say Lena Headey (Cersei) and Charles Dance (Tywin) are at least moderately famous/known, if not by name then at least by "hey, it's that guy/gawl!", especially in Dance's case. But yeah, Sean Bean easily "outclasses" the rest of the cast in that regard. I'll always associate Headey with Sarah Connor in the Terminator TV series, but she also played Gueen Gorgo in 300, for example. Anyone watching the Stargate franchise will also recognize Khal Drogo.

Season 2 casting looks pretty great. They nailed Melisandre, Davos, Balon Greyjoy and Roose Bolton. I also think Gemma Whelan will make a good Asha/Yara, from the looks of her.

Though his beard probably gets in the way a bit, I'm sure plenty of people still recognized Pycelle as "that guy" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance and Lena Heady are pretty well-known outside of the UK, I thought...

Well the thing is like I said earlier I'm mainly just a comedy watcher so I probably wouldn't have seen any of these guys unless they were in HUGE titles that I happened to see (such as Lord of the Rings).

I can't believe I forgot to mention Stephen Dillane as Stannis. A good casting choice, although much leaner than I imagined the character. He will definitely be able to portray Stannis's personality, but I wonder if he has the same presence as the character.

Sean Bean obviously is the most well known actor, but I knew Peter Dinklage from Death at a Funeral, Charles Dance from Alien 3, and Lena Heady from the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. They've done a good mix of relatively well known and relatively unknown actors, with Sean Bean being the recognizable Hollywood face.

Without Sean Bean they're going to need a new ad campaign for season 2. Personally I like the idea of Tyrion standing by the Iron Throne and casting a long shadow. I think this works because Tyrion is really the "main character" of Book 2 with 15 chapters of his own (compared to Eddard's 15 chapters in GoT). If they use Daenerys as the promo I'll be slightly irritated.

Correction: Tyrion has 10 Clash chapters (so does Arya), not 15, but yeah, he's almost the main character in ACoK.

That's good to hear, because I love Tyrion. Us short blokes gotta stick together, regardless of race, gender, orientation and (lack of) medical conditions.

Well you're in for a treat then, if they capture all the political intrigue and maneuvering in Tyrion's Clash of Kings chapters. He had his moments in GoT, but I think ACoK was his shining moment (although ASoS had some great ones as well).

Book spoilers below:

Does anybody know if any other seasons got the green light or is HBO waiting to see how the first few episodes do before hand? Sorry if it was already mentioned but I couldn't find it.

Season 2 is currently filming, nothing is confirmed beyond that.

Thanks for the info. I looked everywhere and couldn't find anything. Realistically,I could see it going for at least 3 to 4 seasons. Who knows,Rome only went two seasons due to extreme costs but GoT has a better buzz and is way more popular, as far as I can tell. Anybody agree?

HBO have learned their lesson about DVD sales since Rome too. It was said afterwards that if they had known the volume of sales the Rome DVDs would generated, they could have gone for at least a third season.

I can only wish they produce more Rome series due to the popularity of the DVD sales. I'm not holding my breath though.

Thats the real question. As Morrigan stated, we only have info up to Season 2 for the moment. In an ideal world, of course I would want to see the entire series produced for TV but there are a few obvious problems here.

1. Probably the most glaring issue here is George R.R. Martin's writing pace. He started off strong writing the first 3 books and releasing them all 2 years apart. At this point, he supposedly intended to fastforward the story 5 years and take it from there. This technically could have worked since all the loose ends for that part of the story had been tied up. That is to say, despite the saga being incomplete, it would have been believable that nothing of real note took place until the dragons grew up, characters aged a bit, etc. Instead, he scrapped the idea, and took 11 years to write which was in essence "Book 4" parts 1 and 2. Some have argued that the hardest part of the writing process is past us and the final acts of the story are ready to be written. However, if HBO is going to keep to an annual schedule, they will do ACoK next year, ASoS in 2013, and presumeably the first halfs of AFFC and ADWD in 2014, followed by the second halfs in 2015 (to keep the timeline intact). Its also possible that ASoS could be split into two seasons with some added material, but even still that requires Martin to put out the final 2 books by 2017. If he keeps to his current pace this is impossible (especially since he stated he won't begin writing WoW until next year) but maybe the show deadlines will help motivate him? I don't think the show is popular enough to take a year or two off from filming and still have viewers or keep the actors on contract when it comes back.

2. Budget. The future seasons will require more special effects, more grandiose sets, a hell of a lot more actors, etc. And those are just the things I know of with what little knowledge of TV show production I have. If DVD sales prove to be profitable I think this could be done

3. The fanbase is also an issue. There are a lot of people who never heard of ASOIAF when they first watched the show. On the plus side, many viewers discovered the books through the series. On the down side, I have seen plenty of whiny people who are in an outrage because "They killed Sean Bean!!!! He was the main character!!!" or "Bring back Khal Drogo or I'm done with this show." This show should have come with a disclaimer of "Don't get attached to anyone, because they're probably already dead." Still, back when 24 was on FOX (probably the other best example of a show that regularly kills off main characters) viewership went down after some fan favorites died. Furthermore, there are issues with the story's overall that may turn some people off. In the end, the only people who are in for the long haul could potentially be long-time fans and people who got attached to the books after the first season.

Now I'm optimistic and I think a lot of this is possible. The main problem is Martin keeping up with the show if we're ever going to see the full series realized on film. Realistically I think we can hope to expect at least 3 seasons (or the story up through ASoS). What I don't want to see is for Game of Thrones to pull a True Blood and rewrite the whole story. That idea worked for that show, but ASOIAF is much too intricate to effectively be rewritten for TV. However if Martin can't finish the books in the next 6 years (assuming the show isn't cancelled) we're probably going to end up with an alternate ending of some kind.

Now that you've mentioned all that I don't have high hopes past a season 2. Debbie Downer.
All kidding aside, I can see HBO dumping some real cash into the series if the DVD sales are great after season 2.

Well on the plus side, with the new casting choices for Season 2 they don't really have to add too many new actors. They already have the story written for up to 5 seasons, and if DVD sales are good (which they undoubtedly will be, HBO has a good track record for this) we can expect the series to go far. The main concern like I said is for Martin to keep writing. I also read an article a while back where HBO execs stated they would "continue the show as long as Martin keeps writing" http://www.aoltv.com/2011/07/29/game-of ... in-future/

So prospects look good despite concerns

The show runners have stated that A Storm of Swords would take up more than one season.

In other news, it seems like Anthony Morris has been cast as the Tickler.


"Is there gold in the village?"

I don't think the deadline will be that big of an issue in my opinion. Remember, a large part of the writing process consists of the actual writing, the dialogue, and all the little things (describing scenery, stuff like that). In all video adaptations of stories (Game of Thrones is no exceptions), dialogue is trimmed down a lot. Because of that, he could potentially write further ahead for the series and continue the large portion of the book later on. Also, I'm sure by now he already has the story complete. As in, everything that happens is already decided and he just needs to write it. If that's the case, it wouldn't be too terribly difficult to give the show writers/director/people an idea of what they need to do.