Learn Who Plays Mance Rayder, GAME OF THRONES’ Much-Discussed King Beyond The Wall!!

HBO nailed the casting on 99% of the other roles so I'll give them a pass on this but both Dominick West and Ciaran Hinds are not right for Mance was HBO dead set on hiring someone from the John Carter movie?...geez

Also hoping for some form of Varamyr Sixskins next season. Fuck the dog head lady, but you need Sixskins and Tormund.

I didn't watch Rome but I like this guy in Munich. Give him a chance.

I've really been enjoying Political Animals. He's a big reason why. That, and hearing Weaver saying "I will fuck your shit up.", in Russian. I think he's a bit fat for the role, maybe they'll have him slim down.

drab as fuck in Rome. Maybe it's me, but if you're playing Ceasar you gotta grab that shit by the balls. Tare it up!

dude do yourself a BIG favor...watch Rome

The guy is the dogs...

FYI HBO doesn't seem to check that the house you're using HBOgo from is the same house the HBO account is on. I'm able to use my sisters cable information to watch HBO go even though I don't subscribe to HBO. It's awesome. So if anyone doesn't get HBO but has a computer-illiterate relative with HBO, ask them to do you a favor.

yeah...I don't get HBO in my apartment...but I just use my folks log-in...works great...also if you have a smart phone you can get the HBOgo app and watch that shit anywhere

so you can crush it quick

Hinds is a good chameleon, it's just Rome he's most known for (rightly so, that shit's crazy). Better choice than West, who in my mind is forever and always Jimmy McNulty. It's a shame for every actor on teh Wire, no matter how talented, but it was just too good, and they will forever be those people to me. I still don't believe it when I hear West's natural accent, and I couldn't no better more.

prove to me that you read/look at wikipedia

Who is playing strong Belwas.

and a down-to-earth and mellow guy off-screen. West's loss is Hinds' gain.

I can't quite wrap my head around that.

This guy is a VERY solid actor. Been great in pretty much everything he's been in (which is a lot - check his IMDb page). I can't imagine he's going to somehow ruin GoT.

In Rome he was all buttoned-up patrician as Julius Caesar; laconic, shrewd, and tightly wound. Then in Political Animals he's balls-out Texas crazy as the Kennedy/T.Roosevelt/Clinton mash-up former POTUS 'Bud' Hammond. (Srsly, he slugs Dylan Baker just for the bonus points.) In Harry Potter he was Aberforth Dumbledore (!), and the dude could have played Albus without many people noticing. And the Russian premier in Sum of All Fears. It's like he specializes in doing every different type of authority figure personality one might think of. If he stays true to form, his Mance will be yet another take on being a leader.

Great actor though.

but then i find out he is younger looking but then a older guy is cast... anyway, no problem with the choice, but i was hoping ricky gervais could've been mance somehow especially since his "dwight" sidekick costar is gonna be in as mance's sidekick maybe Ricky Gervais can be a Greyjoy?

oberyn, greyjoys, martells, brown ben, daario they SHOULD be in season 3, unless they really timeshift stuff around

I'm sure he'll be great, but he's just different then what I pictured. West would have been more how I pictured Mance, sort of a rascally Han Solo type who's charmisma had him wind up as King. I thought Henry Ian Cusick from Lost would have been a great Mance also. I just pictured more of a spry, nimble younger guy. Actually the guy who plays Bronn is a lot like how I pictured Mance. But I'm sure Hinds will be awesome in his own way.

Perhaps they are saving her for season 4 / the second half of Book3

I agree he's great, but he's also showing up in every other big budget blockbuster nowadays, so I doubt they could afford him. I get the very real sense that a big way they are keeping the budget in check for GoT is with casting mostly unknowns, and local Irish actors. Hinds is one of the bigger 'stars' they've cast, and while a great actor he's hardly a household name. Whenever people ask why we haven't seen ramsay bolton, or the reeds or Arstan Whitebeard yet, I think the main reason is to save money on actor's contracts. By pushing some of those character's introductions back into season 3 instead of their book2 introductions, probably saved them some money which went towards making that blackwater battle so awesome.

Mance is supposedly to be charismatic, lively, rogueish, light-hearted and charming as fuck.

But it's still a damn good choice. For the people saying he is too old, you're wrong. Mance had spent a good twenty years beyond the Wall by the time Jon meets up with him. At least I think. But Hinds is still in the right age range. He is just nothing like the book's description, but many aren't.

He's definitely versatile, and it'll be interesting to see him play a more roguish character than we've seen before.

Would have pictured him more as Doran Martell but he's a great addition to the show.

Oh wait. Oh bother.

What the fuck are you people on with the critisism? He was an amazing Caesar, and he's an amazing actor overall. This is fucking top notch casting

you can see why I was adamant about it, Carlyle evinces the qualities needed for the role

People in medieval fantasy novels sing a little differently. ;-) In fact, there was a 2d season episode that ended with a deep male voice singing a dirge or something similar. I always pictured Mance Rayder singing like a viking. I'm completely surprised by Hinds being cast as Mance though, this is one out of left field. He's an awesome actor, but not who I pictured Mance to be. I pictured Hinds as one of the Boltons. But let's give the casting the benefit of the doubt. They also had to consider balancing the actor with Jon Snow/Kit Harrington, so there's that. Plus, a big name actor could prolong the series. Especially with the rate of character deaths and you know what! ;-)

... Ars.

Or Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Ok, so I usually watch an episode of Curb every night before I crash out, and every time without fail, it will start off in beautiful HD, and then about halfway through it will just suddenly become horribly blurry/pixelated, almost to the point where it's unwatchable. It usually will go back to HD by the end, but this happens every single damn time and it's annoying. Anyone have any suggestions?

Happens to my digital as well. Especially when I'm watching the football and something spectacular happens, everything gets pixelated horribly and I miss it. How old's your tv/digital box?

Maybe it would have been a bit too Aragorn Beyond The Wall though, and no way could they afford him. Still, we can dream, and we'll always have the books...

So I'm down with this. I'll admit that I don't read the books and have no clue how "right" he is for the role, but I'm confident he'll kick some ass.

And one of my favourite actors has been cast in the adaptation of my all time fave book series, great news

Happy days, deaddak! Hope you have a good one.

He's certainly among the very last examples of actors I would've thought of for that part (despite his overall being a very capable actor) but he's swung for the fences. I wouldn't at all be surprised to learn there were fans who'd never heard of Hinds before this series and assumed he was a real Southern American.

Re purposed for the the third season of "Rome". You mean Game of Thrones of course. Though, I'll gladly take a third season of both! :)

No its not but its actually Kieran so close enough. Stfu if your name was kieran too you would be pretty happy too.

tutu

They should bring in more people from ROME.

Cuz that was bad and gay.

Not sure who as, but they should cast him.

We just got done this week watching both seasons on blu ray and that show is just as excellent as it was the day it aired. If Rome came on HBO now it would stay around for a few more seasons for sure. I don't think the HBO crowd was ready for that big scale of a show. Now with Game of Thrones out there it would be a ratings hit. I'd love to have seen just one more season. But the show does wrap up nicely for those worried about the story endings.

Not because he's a big stand out in that movie. But because his character has all of 6 lines in the movie but he manages to inject presence into that character that you always know who he is.

He's also Irish, so the casting is in keeping with where its being filmed. I dont think Ive ever seen him give a bad performance.

I always wondered if some of his performance in that movie wound up on the cutting room floor.

I don't see him as Mance Rayder. "McNutty" fits my mind's eye better. But folks here say Hines is a good enough actor to pull it off and overall the cast on GoT has been very good so I'm willing to give Hinds the benefit of the doubt. Valar Dohaeris!

Rayder is the bastard name that the nights watch gives to wildling children who they take in. I guess cause they're usually children of wildling raiders.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_myX5Q4qMDhY/TJJXZdGoxvI/AAAAAAAAFrA/PgERobpqPO4/s1600/there+will+be+blood.jpg http://www.ciaranhinds.eu/images/twbb7.jpg http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2007_There_Will_Be_Blood/007TWB_Ciaran_Hinds_002.jpg

Viggo in a perfect world. Tim Roth could've been interesting as Mance or Rattleshirt.

for someone who leads a free people.

Hopefully he can pull off Mance, who imho, is one of the noblest kings and most interesting characters in the series. The casting has been spot on so far, so why doubt now? Have any Dornishmen been cast yet? That's telling to me. It seems a certain colored wedding might be the finale of season 3, so the Red Viper might not be introduced until season 4. They can also put the events at the Wall as the Blackwater of this season. I do not envy the writers adapting book 3. There's so much awesome, yet so much pressure to make it perfect. Can't wait!

David Tennant would have been Epic Win. i am OK with this pick just not super excited

That's pretty much how I see things playing out. I'm hoping when the Dornish do start showing up they grab my attention more than they do in the books. I feel they're the one really weak set of characters, never really get a sense of who they are, and I never care about what happens to them. I'm not sure if that's just the books reaching the 'too many characters' mark and they just happen to be the straw that broke the camels back, or whether they just aren't as well defined as the others. I think the problem is at times they seem like they are supposed to be these spicy latino like culture, exotic and different from the rest of westeros, but at others they are portrayed as the same sort of anglo-saxon knights and lords as the rest of Westeros and they never seem quite as spicy or exotic as the Bravosi or anyone else over in Essos so I just find I can't get a good sense of them.

Took me a while to realize "Holy Schnikes, that's Stannis!"

I know this show is supposedly one of the greatest things of TV right now but I cannot stay awake through an episode. I have read the books through book 5, and the series peaked at book 1. Book 2 was dull, Book 3 was great although not as good as book 1. As far as I can tell Martin cannot figure out how to continue the story from Book 3 and so he has written thousands of pages of filler and side stories which he then gave titles and called them books 4 and 5. This series is like Lost: great promise at the start, some great moments in the middle, but ultimately a giant crapfest which leaves consumers unfulfilled.

Not to be pedantic, but your final sentence makes it seem as if yours is the only opinion on the matter that counts. To many of us, it is most certainly not a giant crapfest, and since we're all here writing in anticipation of casting, I don't think the consumers have been unfulfilled. Maybe you have, but luckily for us, you don't speak for all consumers.