Like every Game of Thrones fan, Charles Dance was astounded by last season’s next-to last installment. That episode floored viewers with its ritualistic “red wedding,” a massacre staged by Lord Walder Frey, the bride’s father, who meant to settle a score with his hall of guests, and did. “I got quite a shock!” said Dance, speaking for everyone who saw it. “It was bloody in the extreme!” The fact that Dance was caught off-guard is notable, since he’s a star of the show. Indeed, the character he plays, Lord Tywin Lannister, had a hand in the bloodshed. But he didn’t actually appear in that episode, “and when I’m not in it, to be honest with you, I don’t read the script,” Dance said. “I catch up on what’s happening when the episode airs.” Game of Thrones, which returns Sunday at 8 p.m. CDT on HBO, will pack its next punch soon enough in the new season. Such is the nature of this epic fantasy, set on a make-believe continent called Westeros, full of warring kingdoms, rugged landscapes, lots of sex and swordplay, and, of course, fire-breathing dragons. If the scale of the series is vast, the source material is no less sprawling: the five-and-counting novels by George R.R. Martin in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. “I still have not read the books,” said Dance, 67. “They frighten me, books that thick. And, anyway, we’re dealing with an adaptation. I think it’s counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.”
Russell Brand’s next Booky Wook is for kids. The actor and comedian has a deal with Atria Books for a series called Russell Brand’s Trickster Tales, retellings of classic fairy tales.The publisher announced Wednesday that the first of three planned books, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, will be out Nov. 11. The next two books will arrive in 2015 and 2016. Brand will be collaborating with award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell. Brand’s previous books include the best-selling My Booky Wook and Articles of Faith.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 04/03/2014