Game of Thrones: George RR Martin Reveals His Cut Cameo From Original Pilot

Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has offered fans a peek at his cut cameo role from the original pilot episode of HBO's popular fantasy series. Taking to his personal website this week, Martin shared a behind-the-scenes photo from the original pilot of Game of Thrones, showing him and co-star Ian McNeice, playing Illyrio Mopatis, a magister of Pentos, dressed in some brightly coloured, elaborate costumes for the wedding of Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo, which was filmed on location in Morocco. [caption id="attachment_2431800" align="alignnone" width="2048"] Image credit: George RR Martin's Not A Blog[/caption] "Both of us, alas, were left on the cutting room floor when Dany was recast and the wedding was reshot," Martin revealed in the text beneath the image. "Ian McNeice was terrific as Illyrio, by the way, but a scheduling conflict made him unavailable for the reshoot. I never did find time to do another cameo, but I suspect the show was better for it." The original, unaired pilot received negative reactions, which prompted showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to start from scratch, recasting many actors, including replacing Tamzin Merchant with Emilia Clarke for the role of Daenerys. Sadly, Martin's cameo must have featured in the 90% of footage that had to be reshot in order to become the epic Winter Is Coming episode that launched the series. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/10/25/game-of-thrones-star-sheds-light-on-unaired-pilot"] After most of the original pilot ended up on the cutting room floor, Benioff and Weiss invited Martin to travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland to make an appearance in one of the show's final episodes, but he turned it down, reportedly citing a desire to focus on writing The Winds of Winter, the sixth novel in his bestselling Song of Ice and Fire fantasy saga. Fast-forward to this year, and Martin is still hard at work on The Winds of Winter. He shared another update about the book a few months ago, as he revealed that the enforced isolation had been helping him to write more chapters. As a result, he said that he was making "steady progress" on the book, which he now hopes to have completed by next year. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-game-of-thrones-that-never-was&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

from IGN News https://ift.tt/2Jai9vc
via IFTTT