When you’re putting a television show or movie together that based on existing source material, you often run into a problem with fans who already have an image of who they think particular characters should look like. For a book series as popular as A Song of Ice and Fire, with fans who are as heavily invested in the series, that’s obviously going to be a huge hurdle to overcome in the casting process.
Hell, despite four seasons of brilliant casting, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss still face criticism with every new casting. Remember how much sh*t the show received just last year for casting Pedro Pascal as The Red Viper because Pascal wasn’t black? A year later, after quickly become a fan favorite, Pascal is the show’s lone entrant into the Best Guest Actor category at the Emmys.
Point being: Trust Benioff and Weiss. They know what they’re doing. In fact, they knew all along, even in the beginning when they were getting mountains of sh*t from fans about the casting of Cersei, Jamie, and Daenerys. They discussed the criticism they faced during the casting process at the Cannes Lions panel yesterday via Page Six:
“When Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) was cast, people complained she was a brunette, people actually complained when we cast Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jamie Lannister) because his nose isn’t perfect, and people complained when we cast Emilia Clarke as Daenerys because the character in the book is like 13 and she’s 23 or 24. I started tearing my hair out, and we realized if we were to keep our sanity, we’d have to stop looking at everything.”
Weiss and Benioff eventually dealt with the problem by “regretfully disengaging” with the fans through the casting process, and yet despite the excellent track record, they will no doubt face more criticism as they cast the characters of Dorne, and the one major recasting that seems to be on tap for Cersei’s daughter. I expect, however, that whoever they get, fans will be pissed now, but pleased by this time next year.
Source: Page Six
