Games of Thrones prequel casts first lead actor, Paddy Considine

Paddy Considine has become the first official cast member of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.

The English actor – known for his roles in Peaky Blinders, Hot Fuzz, and The Death of Stalin – will play King Viserys I, an ancestor of everyone’s favourite Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen. Viserys is chosen by the Lords of Westeros to succeed the Iron Throne and apparently wants to innocently carry on his grandfather’s legacy. However, as the original series showed us, good men don’t always make good leaders.

HBO and Considine previously worked together on an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Outsider as well as the miniseries The Third Day, both of which aired this year. It’s a tried and tested partnership.

House of the Dragon will take place a few hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones. The series will tell the story of the infamous House Targaryen and is based on George R.R. Martin’s 2018 book Fire & Blood. House of the Dragon is expected to air sometime in 2022, with HBO giving the show a 10-episode order.

Last year, the network scrapped a pilot for another Game of Thrones prequel starring Mulholland Drive’s Naomi Watts. The now-discarded series would have been set thousands of years before the original series.

A number of other prequel projects were put into development around the time that Game of Thrones’ final season aired, but none of these are currently believed to be moving forward. This makes House of the Dragon all the more special – we can’t wait.

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related. I help bring you all the latest news, features, and reviews, as well as helming our Big Screen Spotlight column. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.