Veteran actor Ian McShane has signed on to appear in Season 6 of HBO's Game of Thrones. All that's known about his stint on the show is that his screen time will be minimal, yet his character is extremely important to the show.
McShane is no stranger to HBO, having spent three seasons on Deadwood as malevolent saloon owner Al Swearengen. In addition to his TV fame, the 73-year-old has starred in a number of films that include John Wick, Hercules, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and contributed his voice to animated fare like Coraline, Kung Fu Panda, and Shrek the Third.
The Game of Thrones braintrust — namely creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with source material writer George R.R. Martin — aren't saying who McShane will be playing on the show. And for probably the first time ever, fans aren't able to speculate on a new actor's role.
That's because Season 6 is fully uncharted territory for Game of Thrones, since it's based on Martin's storylines that haven't yet been previously released in one of his novels. The author is famously late with his sixth volume in the series that Thrones is based on, to be titled The Winds of Winter. Loosely following the pattern established by the books, Season 6 should be based on Winter, even though it hasn't been published yet. Fortunately for fans, Martin has shared his grand plan with Benioff and Weiss.
So by that logic, McShane will be playing a character that will appear in Winds of Winter, but we'll meet his TV incarnation before we read about him in Martin's novel.
This news comes just days after HBO's programming guru Michael Lombardo announced that the series will run for at least eight seasons, instead of the expected seven. Does this mean the producers will add material not in the books to "pad out" Seasons 6 and 7? Will events from The Winds of Winter and the final book (which is no doubt still years away) A Dream of Spring be spread across three seasons instead of two?
One thing you can rest assured of: Television is still a business, and Game of Thrones has been very, very good for HBO's business. The cable network will move heave and earth to keep the show on the air for as long as possible.
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