Since for some reason I could not sleep last night (it might have been the copious amount of coke, beer and coffee that I drank the previous day), I managed to make a little progress with reading the fourth book in the series - no I am not finished with it yet, so don't worry.
Anyways, I thought that it would be nice to look up some fact about writers that you might not know about yet - and, of course the first writer that popped into my mind was George R.R.Martin. (Fuck, I'm tired)
And from there it was once again GoT. (Sorry mom, I know you're not a huge fan... yet)
Thus, here are a couple of interesting facts you might or might not have known about the series.
1. Tyrion's awesomeness.
You know how Rowling originally thought about making Alan Rickman play Snape in the Harry Potter movies? Well, just as that role was meant for that particular actor, Peter Dinklage was the first choice of George R.R. Martin for the character of Tyrion. I'm going to go ahead and that both the author and the actor for making Tyrion one of the best fictional characters in the world. (Oh, and also Sean Bean was also a first choice for Eddard - but since they were not sure that he will accept the role, they had auditions with other people too, so in my opinion that's not on the same level of awesomeness)
2. Cersei
Quick, who plays Cersei in the show? If you said Lena Headey, congrats! But did you know that Lena was a good friend of Dinklage even before this whole craze started? How about the fact that it was him that suggested Lena for the role of Cersei? I love how close-knitter Hollywood can be sometimes. Also, I wish to thank Dinklage for doing this, because if Lena wouldn't have played the role, we would have been stuck with Tamzin Merchant in the role. And I don't think that would have been as amazing as this.
3. Tragic end
I have to admit that most of the time I hate starting up a new story that's not yet finished, because I usually end up fearing that it WON'T be finished. I actually had a couple of times this happen (all right, they were only some amazing fanfics, not actual books, but it was still a crappy feeling to be left hanging), so you might understand if I tell you that there is no worse thing but when you invest all your love and energy in one story and then it's cut off right in the middle.
Thus, you might be thinking me an obsessive cunt, but both with the HP series and with GoT I always tend to think about what would (have) happen(ed), if the writer passed away. Besides whole riots lead by crazed fanatics, I would think that not much would actually happen - but apparently George R.R. Martin was good enough to also think about his own sudden demise. And he shared what he intends to do with the books with the series producers. Which, I think is an awesome thing to do (and to once again draw a line between this and HP, Rowling also told the ending to Alan Rickman), because now I don't have to worry anymore.
Oh, and while the topic is here, there is also a little fact that goes like this: a whole lot of actors who play in the series have never read the books - apparently they are afraid of ruining their acting if they would know what was to come (what do you think about that? Are they right in this, or are they just finding excuses for their laziness?). Also I remember reading something about the girl who plays Arya (Maisie Williams), who is not permitted to read the books, because her parents think that it's not for a little girl.
4. Dothraki
How good are your language skill? If the answer is "I'm fucking unstoppable", you might love to know that David Peterson (a linguist expert) actually made up the whole Dothraki language for us, so it's not just gibberish. If you are interested in learning it, you can actually do it, right here. I'm such a nerd, I think I will actually attempt to learn it. Who else is with me?
5. Khal Drogo
What do you think, how hard you must try when you go on auditions for amazingly complex characters? If you think it probably isn't THAT hard, you have no idea. Here's, for example Jason Momoa - who plays Khal Drogo, obviously, trying out for his role. For it, he actually learned a Maori war cry called Haka.
Well. I don't even... fuck.
6. The first White Walker
Do you remember her?
Back when the first episode came out most everyone said that the girl who was nailed to the tree at first -and then came alive, of course - looked too much like a puppet, and that it did not look good with the otherwise realistic looking series. A funny thing, because the girl was actually played by a real person, called Claire Wright. How good of a job did she (the make up artists/ Photoshop experts - or whatever program they use nowadays) do to get that effect? I saw an amazing one!
