Diana Rigg, Ciaran Hinds: 'Game of Thrones:' A Look at Season 3's New Faces and Characters (YAHOO)

By Carrie Bell | Yahoo! TV – Mon, Mar 25, 2013 1:03 PM PDT

The cast dishes on Ciaran Hinds, Diana Rigg, and (spoiler!) a giant arriving in Westeros this season.

Helen Sloan/HBO - Mance Raydar (Ciaran Hinds) and Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) in "Game of Thrones" Season 3.

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains storyline and character spoilers for the third season of "Game of Thrones."

With 27 series regulars and hundreds of guest stars, day players, and extras wandering in and out of Westeros and points beyond, keeping track of who's who on "Game of Thrones" is almost as big a feat as planning the Battle of Blackwater Bay. That task isn't going to get any easier when Season 3, which was shot by three units across five countries and promises plenty of fresh faces, begins March 31 on HBO.

Arguably, the most major addition to the cast was Ciaran Hinds. One, his resumé is as respected as Tywin Lannister's and almost as long as the feared coming winter, with "Rome," "Harry Potter," "Political Animals," and "There Will Be Blood" among the highlights. Two, he is portraying Mance Rayder, the ex-Night's Watchman who united 90 clans into one Wildling army currently moving in on the Wall. Rose Leslie (Ygritte) admitted at the junket last week in Beverly Hills to being a tad starstruck as "we've been watching him from a young age. Phenomenal."

Kit Harington, whose Jon Snow is trying to infiltrate the camp and must get Rayder to trust him, was also in awe. "He's a wonderful, wonderful man, and for someone who hadn't read the books and hadn't even seen the show when he joined and did his first few scenes, he nailed the character. That's the mark of the man's genius and genius of the writing."

READ MORE: http://tv.yahoo.com/news/-game-of-thrones---a-look-at-season-3-s-new-faces-and-characters-200346280.html

Game of Thrones Season 3: Richard Madden The epic journey continues with season three (GULF NEWS)

There are times when the epic journey that his character, Robb Stark, has embarked on in Game of Thrones has felt a little similar to Richard Madden’s own experience working on the acclaimed HBO show. You might say that they’ve grown up together.

On screen, Madden plays Robb Stark who, when still a very young man, is chosen to lead his people after his father Ned (played by Sean Bean) is murdered at the hands of the Starks’ bitter enemies, The Lannisters.
The warring clans are at the heart of a brutal battle for control of Westeros, the fictional land created by George R. R. Martin in his brilliantly imagined series of best selling fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin has now completed five volumes and a further two are planned.

Madden was just 21 when he landed the much sought after role in the show, which is based on Martin’s books, and he recently completed the third season. He has, he says, come of age as an actor during that time, mirroring his character, Robb, who develops into an assured, charismatic leader as the story unfolds.

“I went from being a young actor getting a great part in a big show, which I didn’t expect, with more and more pressure being put on me as an actor, which I’ve really enjoyed and hopefully I’ve handled well and acquitted myself well,” he says


READ MORE: http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/celebrity/game-of-thrones-season-3-richard-madden-1.1163530

'Game Of Thrones' Season 3 Preview: The Challenges Ahead Kit Harington, Sophie Turner and more weigh in on their arcs ahead of Sunday's premiere. By Amy Wilkinson (@AmyMWilk) (MTV)

Winter came to New York on Wednesday (March 27), sweeping in on a cloud alongside "Game of Thrones" The Exhibition, a touring collection of Westeros memorabilia (think: Joffrey Baratheon's crossbow and Ned Stark's head!), co-sponsored by HBO and Time Warner Cable. And many of the realm's famous faces were also on hand at the VIP fete, where they gamely teased what fans of the epic should expect when season three premieres on Sunday.

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

For virginal Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington) — whom we last saw north of the wall among the Wildlings — the opposite sex will pose the biggest challenge.


"I think it's resisting advances from a certain lady, and he's going to find that very hard," Harington told MTV News of his character's struggles this season. "[Also] convincing Mance Rayder and the Wildlings that he's a gentleman who wants to break free from the Night's Watch and be part of them. He's a spy in enemy territory, and he has to convince them that he is one of them and convince himself of that [which] can be ultimately quite confusing."

Meanwhile, half-sister Sansa (played by Sophie Turner) will try to evade her royal captor, former fiancé Joffrey.


READ MORE: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704639/game-of-thrones-season-3-preview.jhtml

HBO: 'Game of Thrones' piracy is a compliment by James Hibberd (EW)

How does HBO feel about having the most pirated show on TV?

Not too bad, apparently.

HBO programming president Michael Lombardo spoke to EW about the rampant illegal downloading of the network’s fantasy hit drama Game of Thrones, which returns for its third season tonight.
The show’s second season was recently released to record-setting DVD sales for the network. But in December, Thrones topped another chart that is far more dubious — Thrones ranked as the most illegally downloaded TV series for 2012. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts,” Lombardo said. “The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.”

The show is currently, on a per-season basis, the network’s top money-earner despite widespread piracy of the show, the executive confirmed. “If you look at aggregate of international and DVD sales — which are the two revenue streams we look at since we’re not selling it domestically on another platform — yes, absolutely, in terms of shows we have on now,” Lombardo said.

In fact, one of Lombardo’s issues with piracy is a creative one. The executive expressed concern that illegal copies can be of poor quality when the Thrones team takes pride in lavishly producing the show. “One of my worries is about the copies [downloaders are] seeing,” Lombardo said. “The production values of this show are so incredible. So I’m hoping that in the purloined different generation of cuts that the show is holding up.”

READ MORE: http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/03/31/hbo-thrones-piracy/

Ciaran Hinds: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Game of Thrones Star Ciarán Hinds is Not Funny He has specifically requested that we not elaborate on this headline.

By Kimberly Kaye • Mar 26, 2013 • New York City

"Don't explain it in that little section below the headline," Ciarán Hinds instructs while organizing tea for the two of us in his dressing room at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. "It should just be, headline: ‘Mr. Hinds isn't funny,' period. Then your first sentence can be, ‘Hinds comes from a long line of dead stoics,'" he laughs. Of course it's not true. Anyone who helps an interviewer fabricate skewed headlines and desk copy has a sense of humor, and Hinds continues to show it off with wry one-liners and well-placed expletives. A Belfast native and veteran onscreen bad guy in flicks like Munich and TV shows like Game of Thrones, the leading man is currently dominating Broadway's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing infirmed Southern non-gentleman Big Daddy opposite Scarlett Johansson, Benjamin Walker, and Debra Monk. It's a role he nearly didn't take, convinced an American might be better suited to the Southern gothic poetics of Tennessee Williams. With the show's run coming to an end on March 31, we checked in with Hinds to talk about poetry, the possibility of doing drag, and his Broadway run with Scarlett and company.

You said opening night you felt there must be somebody more qualified to do American, poetic Tennessee Williams than you. Do you still feel similarly?

That's tough. I said yes to the job, I get paid to do the job. The job is to not shortchange anybody. But no [actor] ever really knows what [audiences get] from what they do. You try to work, with the director and your fellow actors, to get somewhere, but other people are the judge of whether you hit that note right. That's why sometimes you say yes to parts like this, even if you're unsure. You're unsure about much of what you do. Sometimes people will say to me ‘Why do you always play bad men? [points to face] It's the face!

READ MORE OF THE INTERVIEW HERE

Ciaran Hinds, James Purefoy - CAESAR'S DEATH - HAPPY IDES OF MARCH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FvgP5hO99o

ZARADUR