HBO announced on Tuesday the full main cast and director for the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel, and it’s looking like the series will feature a more diverse cast.
After an arduous search, British director SJ Clarkson was chosen to direct the show’s pilot episode. Clarkson most recently directed and produced the BBC/Netflix production Collateral as well as episodes of Orange Is the New Black, Dexter, Bates Motel, and the first episode of Jessica Jones.
As for the cast, Naomi Watts was previously announced to lead the series as “a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret.”
Here’s a look at some of the newly announced cast members:
Naomi Ackie
Denise Gough
Jamie Campbell Bower
Sheila Atim
Ivanno Jeremiah
Georgie Henley
So far, not much is known about the prequel apart from this brief series description: “Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”
Despite the limited details, George R.R. Martin shed light on the upcoming series, stating that the prequel will be different than the original hit show. “Westeros is a very different place” he said. “There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens—Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and hopefully that will be part of the fun of the series.”
If green-lit, the GoT prequel is expected to arrive on HBO in 2020 at the earliest. The final season of Game of Thrones returns in April.
