Well, whaddaya know. It’s happening after all.
As you know, Tor.com Bob (especially if you just clicked that link), the television rights to the Wheel of Time series have just been optioned by a major studio, this time with the approval of Robert Jordan’s estate. Which is pretty stupendous news if you’re a WOT fan. That doesn’t mean a WOT TV series is a fait accompli, of course, but it does mean that its existence is a hell of a lot more likely than it was just over a year ago – which, as you may recall, was when the whole Red Eagle/“Winter Dragon” alleged pilot debacle went down. (My thoughts on the subject at the time are at the beginning of this post.) But whatever, who cares about the legal technicalities of it all, when we can discuss the actual important conundrum now facing the fandom?
That conundrum being, of course (drumroll, please): casting. Dun-dun-DUN!
Who, WHO shall play our beloved (and not so beloved) Wheel of Time characters that we have been following for so very long? It’s a question that’s been fought over since the nineties, over and over again, but now we can start yelling at each other about it afresh, y’all! Yay!
Yes, well. Given that it is a given that any one person’s opinion on this matter will generate instant acrimony and debate, and also given that I adore a good clean acrimonious debate, and also also given that acrimonious debate re: the Wheel of Time specifically is kind of my thing ‘round these parts, there was naturally nothing for it except that I should weigh in on this Vry Srs Bsnss.
So gird your arguin’ loins, O my Peeps, and click on to find out What I Think!
Before we start, a few, uh, provisos, a couple of quid pro quos:
- There is an automatic moratorium on any actor who has already been cast in HBO’s A Game of Thrones. Because I said so, that’s why.
- This is not necessarily a “realistic” casting call. By which I mean, some of the actors I chose would probably never in a million years actually agree to be on the show, because they are Kind Of A Big Deal, but whatever, I can do what I want in my total pie-in-the-sky dream cast. (That said, I think many of my choices are actually quite doable in reality, so.)
- In the interests of not driving myself absolutely insane, I’m mainly concentrating on casting the characters who appear in the first book of the series, The Eye of the World, because otherwise we’d be here till the end of time. I might do a sequel post on characters we don’t meet until later in the series, but for now we’re mostly looking at who would be in the first season or so of our hypothetical TV show. This decision has had some unexpected consequences which I will discuss at the end of the post.
Got all that? Good! Let’s do this thang.
*rolls up sleeves*
So, obviously the first (and most difficult) casting challenge would be to determine who plays our WOT Protagonist Hero Starter Set, aka the Superboys and Supergirls, as I generally refer to them, aka our six-ish villagers (and/or odd royal heir, or both) who will start off young, naïve, and blissfully ignorant, go through Many Naïvete-Destroying Trials and Tribulations, and eventually evolve into fierce battle-hardened saviors of the Entire World. As I should hope would be obvious, casting the Super Young Persons is quite the difficult task, because in terms of a character arc, that’s a pretty big bill to fill for any actor, but even more so for an actor who must also be at least somewhat convincingly able to portray a teenager at the start of this thing. (Or in the case of Nynaeve, a 20-something whom everyone consistently mistakes for a teenager, owing to the age-slowing effects of being a magic channeler.)
Parenthetically, I also confess this provided a particular challenge to me personally, as I am, er, well, not exactly a teenager anymore, and most of the actors and actresses I used to favor for these roles (like, back in the nineties. Shut up. And also get off my lawn) have very much aged out of consideration by this point. I don’t think I am totally out of touch with what the Youth of Today are doing (though the very existence of this sentence probably gives that the lie), but let’s just say the Disney Channel is not on my Favorites list these days. But I did my best, y’all, I swear.
Rand al’Thor
Of all our protagonists, of course, the premier consideration would be who to cast in the role of Rand al’Thor, upon whose shoulders would ultimately rest the heart and soul of the show. And after much soul- (and Google Images-) searching, in the end, I went with:
I don’t mind telling you, I had serious trouble choosing someone for this pivotal role. But Nicholas Hoult is a veteran of SF movies and TV, and I loved him in the films Warm Bodies and Mad Max: Fury Road. Both of which, incidentally, prove he can pull off an eerily compelling combination of crazy/disturbing yet appealing, a talent I think anyone playing Rand al’Thor definitely needs in spades. I feel like he has both the looks (he could totally pull off reddish hair) and the acting ability to portray WOT’s unwilling Messiah figure. At 27 he is a little old, perhaps, but he plays younger very well. (And at 6’3”, he’s definitely tall enough for the role too.)
Matrim Cauthon
Next up we have Matrim Cauthon, the lovable rogue gambler/fighter/lover of our Superboy trio. Mat is more or less my favorite character in the series, and therefore I could go with no less than my favorite young actor in the world at this moment:
Teen Wolf is a terrible, terrible show, but Dylan O’Brien’s rise to fame because of it was entirely warranted, in my opinion, because he was always about a million times better than the material he was given to work with. His leading role in the Maze Runner film trilogy demonstrates his ability to play a badass, but it’s his portrayal of Stiles in Teen Wolf that shows off, almost against the show’s will it seems, his serious acting chops in both the comedic and dramatic arena. Certainly his personal charisma is off the charts, if Tumblr’s obsession with him is anything to judge by (he was the sixth most reblogged actor on Tumblr in 2015, beating out the likes of no less than Robert Downey Jr., Sebastian Stan, and Benedict Cumberbatch). Maybe no one else would agree, but personally I think he would make a great Mat.
Perrin Aybara
And then there’s Perrin Aybara, blacksmith, Wolfbrother, and axe-wielding heavy of the three boys. I admit I drew a total blank on casting Perrin for quite a while, until Sister Kate suggested this guy:
He’d have to bulk up for the role, of course, but otherwise Penn Badgley is pretty much exactly what I picture in my head for Perrin’s appearance. I confess I never watched Gossip Girl, his most well-known role (though I looked at some clips before writing this), but I loved him in Easy A. And apparently he can pull off a beard, which is naturally of utmost importance for a Perrin!
And now, the Supergirls!
Egwene al’Vere
First up is my favorite Ooh Ooh Girl, Egwene al’Vere, whom I believe is the youngest of our Starter Set, and thus was very difficult to cast. But I think I found just the girl for it:
No one who’s seen her play Hit Girl in Kick-Ass could doubt that Chloë Grace Moretz can, well, kick ass, or at least play a girl who can, and it’s that combination of her look of sweet innocence and her demeanor of steely resolve that I think makes her perfect to play Egwene. And at 19, she’s realistically about as young an actress as you could possibly hope to find to play the character.
Elayne Trakand
Second is Elayne Trakand, everyone’s favorite bath- risk-taking, chin-raising, unfairly pretty Daughter-Heir. I had a lot of trouble with her, but finally settled on a perhaps somewhat unconventional choice:
I am of the considered opinion that Saoirse Ronan can pull off just about any role she sets her mind to with perfection, up to and including playing a headstrong, pure-hearted queen-to-be like Elayne. Of course, as a two-time Academy Award nominee by the age of 22, Ronan is not very likely to take on a role in an upstart fantasy TV series, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Nynaeve al’Meara
Last but definitely not least of our Hero Starter Sextuplet Set is Nynaeve al’Meara, probably my overall favorite female character in the series, and by far the most difficult for me to cast of any of them, even Rand. I agonized over this one, y’all, no lie.
I really would have loved for her to be played by Emily Blunt, but at 33 Blunt is just too old, sadly. Nynaeve may be in her mid-twenties at the start of the series, but far too much of her character development hinges on her resentment of looking younger than her actual age to risk casting an actress who might actually appear older than her actual age.
So, after approximately 300 hours of Googling and arguing with everyone in range about it (seriously, my entire family has ended up embroiled in this debate, even those relatives who have never actually read the series), I finally tentatively settled on yet another perhaps non-intuitive choice:
Now granted, at 27 Emma Stone is probably too old for the role as well, but I decided I don’t care, because I frickin’ adore Emma Stone, and I seriously could not come up with anyone else who I felt could remotely play Nynaeve with anything like both the conviction and, most importantly, humor her character deserves. (I have always felt that Nynaeve needs to be played by an actress with strong comedic talents; otherwise it would be far too easy to render her hopelessly and unfairly unlikeable.) If it comes down to picking some young thing who could never hope to do Nynaeve justice, or picking Emma Stone, well, I know which one I’d go with. NO CONTEST.
All right! And now that our Super Young Persons are done with, it’s time to turn to the rest. So, going roughly by order of appearance in The Eye of the World…
Ishamael/Ba’alzamon
KIDDING! I’m kidding, calm down. Hahaha the look on your face.
But seriously, for Crazy Flame Face I’d have to go with my man Rufus Sewell.
I’ve loved him ever since Dark City, and he’s proven adept at playing believable – and believably scary – villains in multiple productions, including most recently as a Nazi commandant in the miniseries The Man in the High Castle. There’s probably a whole bunch of actors who would be a great Ishy, honestly, but I’d love to see Sewell do it.
(As a side note, I didn’t bother to cast Lews Therin Telamon, because honestly we only ever see him once in the entire series, and anyway my casting muscles were plumb worn out by the time I remembered about him. Sowwy.)
Tam al’Thor
I really tried not to poach from the Teen Wolf stable again, I swear, but…
C’mon, is that a careworn yet sturdy father figure or is that a careworn yet sturdy father figure? Plus, don’t forget that back in the day Linden Ashby was also Johnny Cage, y’all. MORTAL KOMBAT!
Moiraine Damodred
I didn’t even get a chance to debate with myself about who should play Moiraine, because Sister Liz was instantly like OMG NO I KNOW WHO, and dragged me to her computer to Google this lovely lady:
British actress Janet Montgomery has racked up a pretty impressive CV in the SF or SF-adjacent arena, including roles in Black Swan, the BBC series Merlin, and most recently as the lead in the currently-running cult series Salem, playing the imperious and powerful witch Mary Sibley. I have not watched this series myself (though I suspect Sister Liz has planned a binge-fest for my near future whether I want one or not), but I’ve looked at some clips, and damn. If you want someone to play a mysterious, regal, and ambiguously threatening magic-wielding woman, I say you need look no further than Ms. Montgomery. And she is a dead ringer for the description of Moiraine we get in the books.
Side note: it later came to my attention that Montgomery actually played Nicholas Hoult’s love interest in the British series Skins back in 2008, which is… heh, a little awkward, if Hoult is Rand? But, whatever. That’s not even close to the strangest dissonance/ridiculousness I’ve seen in Hollywood casting. (Six words: Sean Connery playing Harrison Ford’s father.)
Lan Mandragoran
My pick for Lan will be, I suspect, a little controversial to some:
This is not, to be certain, how Lan has ever been portrayed in WOT artwork, professionally or in fandom, but given that Malkieri/Borderlander culture is so heavily flavored with Eastern/Asian influences, I felt like it was justified. Then, too, is the fact that Ken Watanabe’s inclusion provides a much-needed bit of diversity in what I belatedly realized is a painfully lily-white lineup thus far (more on that later).
And anyway, if you want an actor who can play an older, world-weary, yet effortlessly hard-core warrior samurai dude, Ken Watanabe is unquestionably your man. It works, y’all. Fight me.
Thom Merrilin
I went through a whole roster of older actors who I thought could convincingly play the crouching gleeman, hidden badass that is Thom, including but not limited to Patrick Stewart, Dennis Quaid, and Steve Martin (no, really). Stewart would normally be perfect for the role (my mother, a lifelong Trekkie, campaigned relentlessly for him, heh), but at 75 I feel like he is just a hair (haha) too old to be pulling off tumbling and juggling and fighting Myrrdraal and so on.
And anyway, then Google gave me this picture:
And I was like, well, okay then. Jeff Bridges already is Thom Merrilin, who knew.
Padan Fain
Oh, you think I’m kidding with Paul Reubens, do you.
I’m not.
Min Farshaw
I wanted to resist pulling from the Twilight crowd, y’all, I really did, but:
Sorry, but Ashley Greene with a pixie cut is the spitting image of how I have always pictured Min in my head, so I couldn’t pass it up. Also, I feel like Greene is probably way better an actress than her material in the Twilight movies allowed her to be, so it would be cool to give her a chance to branch out, you know?
Elyas Machera
Sam Elliott. DUH.
Loial
Okay, yes, I’m aware that casting Hagrid to play our favorite Ogier is ridiculously on the nose. But if y’all can come up with anyone else besides Robbie Coltrane (anyone alive, that is) who could remotely play Loial to justice, I’m all ears. (If Andre the Giant was still around it’d be a no-brainer, but sadly that is not the case.)
Gawyn Trakand
Most people know Hunter Parrish best from his portrayal of Silas on Weeds, and honestly that alone should be enough to convince you of his acting chops. Gawyn makes me bang my head against hard objects more than probably any other character in WOT, but there’s no denying that he is a complex and angsty deeply conflicted character, who needs an actor of Parrish’s caliber to pull his drama off, otherwise he’d be a trainwreck. Plus it doesn’t hurt that I would absolutely buy that he is Saoirse Ronan’s brother. Scroll back up and look at her picture if you don’t believe me.
Galad Damodred
So I says to myself, “Self,” I says, “If you needed to pick an actor who’s made a career of playing stiff, arrogant assholes who are secretly, deep down, actually kinda big damn heroes once you get past all the terrible personality defects – oh, and also is almost unnaturally man-beautiful, as in drop-dead gorgeous, who would you pick?”
“Oh, you’d pick Colton Haynes, would you?” I says.
“Yep,” says me.
Morgase Trakand
Julianne Moore. Because, Julianne Moore. *helplessly gestures at all the awesome*
Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan
It might almost be a waste of a Lucy Lawless to make her Elaida, but there’s no doubt she could play the hell out of the character, and at this point no fantasy or fantasy-adjacent TV series is complete without her. The WOT TV Powers That Be may not choose to cast Lawless in this particular role, but they damn well better cast her somewhere, by gum. Anything else would be a crime. This I Foretell.
Agelmar Jagad
In keeping with my theory that the Borderlands are more Asian-influence than they are anything else, I thought Jet Li would do quite well for the role of General Jagad. The character is described as merely “hard-faced”, with a topknot of pure white, in the book, which leaves it pretty open to interpretation. This picture is from 2006 (his performance in Fearless), and Li is featured with a queue rather than a topknot, but I felt like it got the impression across of how he would look as Agelmar, especially now that he is ten years older.
* * *
Aaand that’s where I’m gonna stop for now. I’m pretty sure that the only other major characters in TEOTW I haven’t cast yet are the Green Man, who will almost certainly be a CGI character, and Balthamel and Aginor, who will be on screen for like two minutes tops before being most decidedly killed, and will be either in a mask or covered in extreme old age makeup, respectively, for that whole time anyway. I’m much more interested in their later incarnations as Osan’gar and Aran’gar, from a casting standpoint. But not now, jeez.
If I’ve missed anyone, of course, I’m sure that you guys will let me know. (Okay, Tallanvor. But really, whatever with Tallanvor. And Geofram Bornhald and Jaret Byar, but ugh, whatever with them too.) I figure this is more than enough to get the massive bouts of indignation rolling, anyway.
Before we end, though, there is something that must be addressed, as I mentioned earlier, and that is the general total lack of diversity in the cast I’ve chosen here. There is no getting around the fact that other than Ken Watanabe and Jet Li, every single actor I’ve selected thus far is white.
And that’s on me, and I will take my licks for it if need be. But I decided not to change it, and for better or worse, here’s my reasoning on why:
The Eye of the World, being as it is Robert Jordan’s homage to the beginning of Tolkien’s saga Lord of the Rings, is very much set in the medievalish fantasy equivalent of the bucolic English countryside. The Two Rivers, from whence Our Heroes mostly hail, may not quite be the Shire, but that’s mainly just accounting for a different height average among its denizens than hobbits typically rejoice in. And once Our Heroes leave the Shire Two Rivers, they end up in the less-bucolic-but-no-less-English-like city of Caemlyn, which is basically Camelot with the serial numbers filed off, if the Arthuriana-esque names of its ruling family (Elayne, Morgase, Gawyn, Galad, hello) are anything to judge by.
All of which is another way to say that the setting of TEOTW, at least, is very, very white. And by limiting myself to only casting the characters of the first novel, I sort of by default limited myself to the characters who are least arguably anything other than white as well.
In Jordan’s defense, though (and mine, I suppose), once he felt he’d fulfilled his Tolkien homage quota and moved on to expanding his world and getting his main cast out of England Andor, it immediately became about ten million times more diverse, and from The Great Hunt onward we will get to meet all kinds of people who are explicitly described as and/or can be interpreted to be many things other than Caucasian/European/white. And in a way, this can be interpreted as a perhaps unconscious commentary on the evolution of Our Heroes from naïvete to maturity, in that they start out with the expectation that everyone should be like they are (or look like they do), and find that in fact, the real world beyond their narrow borders is far more complex and varied than they had always been led to believe.
For example, we won’t meet Faile Bashere until the third novel, The Dragon Reborn, but she is destined to become a major character who is clearly not described as white. So I cheated, just to even out the field a little, and picked out an actress for her:
Natasha Liu Bordizzo only has one credit to her name so far, but it’s a lead role, as “Snow Vase” in the just-released Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, a sequel to the 2000 movie. (I’ve watched it on Netflix. It’s pretty good! Even though I find it disconcerting that it is in English.) Bordizzo is very impressive in it, and I think she would make a great Faile.
Granted, this does not ultimately detract from the problematic truth that the beginning of the WOT TV series, as I have cast it, would be overwhelmingly Euro-centric, and perhaps the acknowledgment that the cast would become increasingly less Euro-centric as the series progresses is not sufficient to compensate for that. That is for others to judge. I will say that I welcome suggestions for alternate casting decisions which mitigate that possibly skewed perspective.
In other words, have at, my peeps. Whether you disagree with me on ethnic grounds or disagree with me on entirely different grounds, or even in the amazing event that you think all my casting choices are wonderful and perfect (haha, yeah right), I wanna hear from you. Who, WHO should be in the Wheel of Time TV series? Let the good clean acrimonious debate begin!
Leigh Butler is a writer, blogger, and acrimonious debate-haver, who has of recent times conducted the Wheel of Time Reread and the Read of Ice and Fire on Tor.com, and has something even more fun on the horizon for y’all, just you wait, Henry Higgins!
while this is a lot of fun, saying that the characters from Book One are white is straight-up inaccurate. you’re not wrong that the original setting is medieval Europe, but the characters are described as having a range of skin tones and hair color. if you look at Egwene al’Vere’s write-up on the Wheel of Time Wiki, for example (spoiler warning), she’s got dark skin. i remember the phrase “nut-brown” being tossed around from my own reads (and rereads). and she’s not the only one. it can be hard to remember description details, especially on a series this long-running, but there are POC baked into the story here and that should be reflected in casting as well.
Of course you would pick the ur-Dad for Tam. Though could we fit in JR Bourne as Elyas? Just for giggles and kicks?
I don’t think I like your picks for the Superboys (I mean, I like Dylan but he doesn’t fit somehow; I think we need more young Harrison Ford [I can only say that because Star Wars, I’m not that old] than pretty af Stiles). Is there a natural redhead for Rand, at least?
What about Kate Mulgrew for Morgase?
I feel like I remember a comment at some point about Two Rivers people being “not usually so fair of skin,” in reference to Rand. I took this to mean that the Two Rivers, despite its otherwise Bucolic English Countryside feel, had browner skin, and Rand stood out even more because he was so pale from the Andoran royalty and Aiel blood. But then again, he doesn’t know he’s adopted, which means that Tam is probably a similar color, and no one from the Two Rivers ever mentions it… (I think the comment I’m thinking of is in the White Tower, but alas I cannot remember for sure.)
Fun casting though! I’d love to see what you came up with for Tuon, Siuan, and Lanfear. :) (I have a joke headcanon of Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Lan, but I like your casting better.)
Ken Watanabe is a brilliant choice, I would never have thought of him, but from now on he’ll be my mental image of Lan whenever I re-read…
Why the moratorium on Game of Thrones actors? I want Sean Bean to play the part of Ingtar. Basically he would have to do what he did with Boromir, heroic sacrifice at the end and all.
Though she has certainly aged out by now, I tend to picture a young Candice Cameron as Egwene. I’m a bit embarrassed to suggest that I would like to see the Rock as Lan, but there it is
Just one thing: I always imagined Thom Merrilin with John Rhys-Davies’ voice. Not sure how he’d do for looks, but that voice can really pull off the dramatic flair as well as the occasional comedy. (And yes, I’m probably influenced by Macbeth from Gargoyles.)
I find myself agreeing on most all of your suggestions – though I always envisioned Thom being played by Sam Elliot (Google search Sam Elliot in Tombstone and tell me that mustache isn’t Thom Merrilin perfect. I could actually see Jeff Bridges doing a good Elyas Machera, too. So for me let’s call them interchangeable.
I also think that anyone who blows up at you for choosing mostly white people should hopefully be able to understand where you’re coming from – the brunt of tEotW takes place in Andor, which, as described by Jordan, seems to have a largely white population. Cairhein too, honestly.
I have no problems at all with your Borderlanders being portrayed by actors of Asian descent – I think it makes perfect sense. Jordan never specifically states a skin-color for them (not in primary color speak, anyways) but he makes mention of other characteristics that lend themselves toward Asian casting.
Your Faile’s nose is not big bold enough, though. However now that I stare at the pic you uploaded long enough, the tip of her nose does seem to follow me around the room…
As to your Rand/Mat/Perrin, I’m not sure how the actors line up in height – with your Rand being a natural 6’3, is Perrin close enough to that? The actor is 5’9, and while I’m sure you could put him in some big boots… (I always envisioned him at 6’2 or 6’1 – you’d see that Rand was taller if you put them next to each other, but apart either one would seem pretty big.) Also I always saw Mat as around 6′, and your actor is 5’10. Again, big boots maybe? One alternative idea would be Luke Benward, a 6’2 guy who has been on a few Disney Channel shows. He’s a youthful-looking 21, so could pull of any of the Superboys in terms of age. Or maybe use him as Tallanvor? Not sure how tall Tallanvor is.
Nice list, fun to go through. As for those you left off:
Aginor: James Spader
Balthamel: Dave Bautista
Green Man: Idris Elba
And yeah honestly when we get to the whitecloak dudes it’s like ok whatever, but for some fun (and absolutely no chance at getting them):
Geofram Bornhald: Anthony Hopkins (go big or go home right?)
Jaret Byar: Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston
And yeah, I just filled out your roster with actors from the MCU. I went there.
I had the Rock pegged as Logain instead; grandiose, entitled and charismatic.
Grant Gustin as Mat Cauthon. Fight me. ;-)
Penn Badgely, whatever his qualifications may be, looks too much like an exhausted hipster, and I’m not sure he could ever bulk up enough to be Perrin. I’m going to side-eye the “no GoT actors” clause, and suggest that the guy who played Gendry would be a great Perrin. Possibly also Bob Morley from “The 100.
Elodie Yung as Faile. Again, fight me. She would be perfect, especially as she becomes more badass.
Emma Stone could also play Elayne, if she decided she didn’t want her every third line to be a snort and an insult involving sheep. We know she can rock red hair.
Jeff Bridges as Thom Merriln – Yes, all day long YES!
Sam Elliott as Elyas – I could almost see him as Lord Gareth Bryne instead.
Ken Watanabe as al’Lan Mandragoran – I never would have thought of this, but it really is brilliant.
Lucy Lawless – let’s wait a few seasons and give her Berelain.
@1 Jenn I’m pretty sure Egwene was never described as having dark skin. I followed your link to the wikia article, but I believe that is erroneous (other sources such as tarvalon.net and encyclopedia-wot.org do not mention dark skin). Dark hair and brown eyes, yes. But there’s a specific reference during her time with the Aiel that she’s getting so sun-darkened that she has begun to pass for an Aiel (to wetlanders, at least).
Andor eventually ended up having a remarkably wide range of skin-tones. After the more, well, let’s say ‘traditional’ stylings of the early books (and the Guide has a direct statement that Andorans are known for being fair-skinned) Jordan seems to have reconstructed the nation into an equivalent of fantasyland India, with a very wide selection of skin-tones considered normal, with Caemlyn being where fair skin and light eyes predominate. The first Queen of Andor was considered as ‘dark as any Atha’an Miere’, after all.
I’d honestly considered the Wheel of Time to be consisting of a mongrelized racial mixup with racial features distributed differently from our modern times, since it’s set in another Age. Bit hard to show that with real actors though.
@3 Sonia Grace There are plenty of references to Rand’s *eyes* being unusual for the Two Rivers, but nothing about his skin that I recall.
While Julianne Moore is, indeed, awesome, I think she’s too old for Morgase, who had her children young and is at least a tiny bit slowed. I’d suggest Kristin Connolly:
Slightly weird expression notwithstanding, she’s beautiful, she’s got red-gold hair (yes, I get that hair dye exists, but fantasy casting, nyah), and most importantly, everything I’ve seen her in she’s been constrained to the helpless ingenue, so I think Morgase is the perfect evolution for her.
I was totally going to suggest Nicholas D’Agosto for Mat, but god dammit he’s 35 too. But so dreeeeeeeamy. He could maybe be Galad.
OH MY GOD ALSO ALSO ALSO ALSO
HOW CAN WE LEAVE OUT
JULIE ANDREWS AND ANGELA LANSBURY AS OUR FAVORITE SNARKY AUNTS ADELEAS AND VANDENE
edit because I’m getting excited: Tyne Daly as Verin? Hilary Swank as Siuan? Sara Ramirez as Leane? Jerrika Hinton as Shalon din Togara?
Mat was always an everyman character to me, so a shorter Harrison Ford would work pretty well.
Harrison Ford’s more enduring characters are always being ‘bullied’ by women anyway.
I don’t think we need to worry about Dawson casting too much. While there’s a bunch of teenagers none of them are really going to spend that much time in teenager-type context. Just make sure the superboys and girls look to be of an age even though Nynaeve is actually older.
Just a comment about LordNarvi’s
This could be my failing memory, but I seem to recall reading somewhere (a long time ago) that of all human physical characteristics, skin color is the fastest to change. I’m not sure how they determined this, but the claim was that it only took about 6,000 years — far less than an Age — for evolutionary pressures to be seen in skin color. The closer to the equator, the less Vitamin D production was important and the more the issues with skin cancer. Thus, dark skin. The farther from the equator, the more important Vitamin D production and the less the issues with skin cancer. Thus, lighter skin.
I have not idea how they determined 6,000 years, or even if my memory is correct. But if true, it would imply that the end of an Age, with it’s accompanying unsettled society, would create a “mongrelized racial mixup”, but as civilization settles, then there would be more homogenous societies. (And I mean settles as in generally people stay in one place.)
Modern transportation throws this whole thing into the mixer. Literally.
I always viewed Saldaeans as having an Eastern Mediterranean look. Or rather, that is the geographic/ethnic look I associate with that description. Lebanese or Greek or Syrian or something along those lines.
According to Jordan, Saldaeans would be like people around the Black Sea/Asia Minor. The problem is that the Black Sea area is very diverse, due to history. But it would be like Turkish/Georgian/Russian/Ukranian/Romanian/Tatars (tatars also being very diverse, going from full East Asian to “I can’t believe he’s not Russian”).
Nothing for Billy? How about Tam?
Edward J. Olmos as Geofram Bornhald (I would have cast Olmos as Pedron Niall, but you said to limit it to TEotW characters);
Shailene Woodley as Egwene (she is the lead actress in the Divergent film series and The Fault in Our Stars);
Jonathan Frakes as Padan Fain (I think Frakes could really pull this off);
Cote de Pablo as Moiraine (she played Ziva in NCIS);
Caterina Scorsone as Nynaeve (she plays Amelia Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy)
BTW, I think Leigh’s casting of Ken Watanabe as Lan and Sam Elliott as Elyas is genius.
Thanks for reading my musings
AndrewHB
Lan is described as every bit as tall as Rand and decidedly more physically imposing. Watanabe is far from a ‘big guy’ and though he does possess a formidable scowl his stature would not garner a second glance. Jim Caviezel does imposing and stoic with a face ‘all planes and angles’ very well, and Shienar is not Malkier. Save Watanabe for Ingtar maybe. You need a Hurin and a Uno as well, down the road.
The rest I really cannot quibble too much with.
SunDriedRainbow @15. How about Miranda Otto for Morgase?
Thanks for reading my musings
AndrewHB
Ummm…. Gareth Bryne?
How about Daniel Day-Lewis for Gareth Bryne? I think he would play off of Julianne Moore really well.
Since all the dream casting has been going on around the web, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
I have a number of pictures of my Amerian co-workers with Peruvian co-workers. The Americans typically tower over the Peruvian’s. This is how I’m starting to see the Cairhiens. As either Peruvian or other South American group. Since they are almost all described as short with dark hair and eyes. Which admittedly many other ethnic groups could be describe as well.
Plus I just think it would be fun to see a bunch of South Americans in 17th Century French dress. It would drive home the mash up nature of Jordan’s world.
For Egwene I came up with Amber Midthunder – a Native American actress who has already won one acting award.
Native American actors and actresses are not seen enough on TV. And as Sherman Alexie said on the Daily Show, N.A. often get mistaken for lots of other groups.
I’ve always seen Faile as Greek.
But I would love to see Alexander Siddig play Davram t’Ghaline Bashere. Julian Bashir, play Bashere – come on – who would not love this? Plus WoT will treat him better than GoT did. He was wasted on that show.
I really think the WoT world should be full of bi-racial people.
Part of me thinks it would be fun to have Sean Bean play Artur Hawkwing. He’s already dead, and would only be needed for 2-4 episodes. Totally doable!
I could see Jim Caviezel as Lan better than Watanabe, for the reasons @24 gave, though I think Asiatic actors would be great for the borderlanders too. The problem is the physicality doesn’t match up as well. Oooh! Caviezel as Gareth Bryne!
Ian Anthony Dale, maybe? At 5’11” he’s more physically imposing and at 37, he could more easily pull of a spring/fall romance with Nyn. I’ve no idea as to his acting chops, just that he’s a more physically imposing Asian (Japanese/French) descent actor with a planar face. May want to give him some graying hair, though.
Or Daniel Dae Kim, wearing tall shoes?
Or Russell Wong.
Dylan O’Brien in pink ribbons. OK
Ken Watanabe – it takes a moment, but I agree
Pee Wee Fain – lovin’ it
and of course, Dame Judi Dench as Cadsuane (OK, not in first book…)
Jim Caviezel for Bryne. Definately.
@23: Cote de Pablo as Moiraine – that would be great! But didn’t she walk away from TV? sad noises.
Ken Watanabe is 6′. That’s pretty good. He’s also Japanese.
Jet Li is Chinese. So them being from neighboring countries is totally plausible.
Judy Dench or Maggie Smith for Cadsuane would both be entirely apropos.
@30. I always picture Maggie Smith when I read a Cadsuane section. Probably because she kept calling Robin Williams “Boy” in Hook and we know she can play a real b!$#*.
@28. I’ve always thought of the Cairhienen as more Chinese due the hair style of their soldiers and the height. Because of this, I always think of Moraine as Asian.
@29 & 31, I withdraw my suggestion of Daniel Day-Lewis for Bryne. Caviezel it is. How about Day-Lewis as Demandred?
How about Ming-Na Wen or Michelle Yeoh as Moiraine.
Also, Sean Bean should be the mayor of Hinderstap.
@34: Cairhienen as Chinese – I always thought this way too. Until the last 4 years of seeing so many people from Peru be about a foot shorter on average then their American counterparts. So my idea drifted.
Plus if Lan is played by a tall Asian actor (yes, they exist), having Moiraine be from a different ethic group, would help the first half of the show be more diverse. As Leigh said, if they cast the core 6 as all white people – the diversity is going to have to come from the “outsiders” of the Two Rivers groups.
@31: Too young for the part. But so nice…
@36: LOL!!
@37 I’m down with that for the Cairhienen.
Can we all agree that we will mutiny if they don’t cast Kevin McNally as Bayle Domon? I know its obvious, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
@Braid_Tug They can always age him up a bit…
I don’t think that 27 would be too old for Nynaeve personally, especially since everyone’s playing younger – I get the impression that the age difference between her and the other Two Rivers folk was supposed to be more of a driving force at times, both with them deferring to her at first (and once shs’s Accepted) and then later on as she has to defer to Egwene and Elayne because of their positions. I think that keeping it in mind on the page became too much work and Jordan just kind of let it drop, but I bet that in a visual medium you could keep it a factor for longer.
@30 – Judi Dench as Cadsuane would be awesome.
Whomever they choose I just hope that Perrin looks like an actual blacksmith. Make the guy spend 8 months in the gym so he actually looks like he’s swung a hammer all day since he was 9. I get, yeah, you want someone who can act, but that doesn’t mean he can’t also beef up for the role. I mean, look at Hugh Jackman…
And what do you think about an animation serie? I do not speak a Disney style but a style as Captain Harlock…
@43: I’ve always thought it would be better as an animation series.
Voice actors don’t age like real life actors – so you could cover 3 book years in 7-10 real years without worry. And, an actor doesn’t have to “look” the part to “voice” the part.
The cast of thousands easier to afford and create.
I think is would be super fun for them to ask fans to submit pictures of their faces. Then the random background characters could have fan faces. I would love to see Cadsuane drawn as cos-player and JordanCon Art Show director April Moore.
The Trollics and Wolves and other non-humans easier to create without expensive CGI effects – or worse bad CGI effects.
The large numbers of locations and set designs much cheaper.
The World of Dreams effect & showing the Power weaves – again without expensive CGI effects – or worse bad CGI effects.
It all comes down to how much money they want to spend on it. Animation can come off just as bad as cheap/bad cgi, with the greater downfall of it being the entire show, rather than a portion of it.
@43, I really liked Captain Harlock, so I’d be cool with that. Also, I’ll second everything Braid_Tug said.
I think we’re all forgetting the most important casting of all – who’s going to play Bella?
While I can agree with most of your choices, I would make some changes:
Rand: Alex Pettyfer
Perrin: Jonny Weston
Egwene: Victoria Justice
Elayne: Emma Roberts
Lan: Keanu Revees
Briar_rose01 @47. I do not know who should play Bella. But American Pharoah should play Pips.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Molly C. Quinn as Elayne
In no way shape or form should Keanu Reeves play Lan.
To heck with a GoT moratorium! Sean Bean must play Lews Therin. Just so we can fulfill the Fantasy Show/Movie quota: Sean Bean must die, im pretty sure this is a tv trope now, Cast Sean Bean and kill him early. Its just how succesful fantasy productions work in Hollywood.
Didn’t seem to like my pic. Let me try it again. Ahem…Molly C. Quinn as Elayne
Oh never mind. Sigh.
@53
You mean Molly C. Quinn?
@52
Mayor of Hinderstap. He dies again, and again, and again, and again…
@AndrewHB ooh, Miranda Otto would be pretty great too!
@55 – Yep, that’s it. Glad it worked for you!
I’ve been working this cast in my head for years. Here are some Ideas I had:
Moraine – Rachel Bilson
Agwain – Danielle Panabaker
Nynieve – Krysten Ritter
Min – Ksenia Solo
Mat – Robert Sheehan
Eleida – Calista Flockhart
Elaine – Jane Levy
Faiele – Nasim Pedrad
Dwayne Johnson has always been in my head for Lan, since Mummy Returns/Scorpion King.
Maybe I’m just an old curmudgeon, but I can’t see this being made as anything but a hipster, millennial pleasing, teen-angst filled CW production, ala MTV’s Shanara chronicles. Granted, there is plenty of teen angst to be found in the books if you look for it, but still. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not sure I see a GOT like budget and effort here. Perhaps a well done animated production of Avatar or Clone Wars quality being a better route to adaptation.
On Facebook, we have a site for the Fantasy casting that has been there for years. We took everything down and restarted when the announcement was made for the show (still waiting to hear who the BIG STUDIO is btw.) Anyway, anyone is welcome to come check it out:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/232533630181957/
Currently we’re on Egwene. I started this casting round using tEotW, starting with the first speaker (LTT) and going from there (Danny Trejo just got cast as Narg.) But we can always use creative input!
Personally, I’d love for them to do what they did with GoT and SWVII etc. and cast new/newish actors in the younger roles. Maybe even do an open casting for the Two Rivers five.
The person meant to play LAN hasn’t changed in 20 years. It’s still Dolph Lundgren. Disagree with me, and I must break you.
Sean Bean to voice The Green Man, so he can be introduced and soon die protecting Our Heroes.
Nathan Fillion aged up for Thom. He was always supposed to be too nimble for his age, and Nathan has the personality. Plus, he’s done with Castle now.
She doesn’t show up until book 6? 7? But in my head Tuon is Lupita Nyong’o.
I agree with @62; if I’ve heard of the actors playing Rand, Mat, Perrin or Egwene prior to the casting announcement, I’ll be seriously disappointed.
I think the role most likely to land a big major star is Tam al’Thor. It’s a juicy role for the two episodes he’d be in. You don’t really need to bring him back until the final season either. He could have left the Two Rivers looking for his son and not returned yet when the scourging of the Two Rivers occurs.
My pick for Tam is Russell Crowe.
As far as altering the descriptions of characters, I don’t care, except where in the deviation alters important characterizations. So, is Mat taller than Perrin? Don’t care. Blonde, dark eyes? Don’t care.
Rand’s height and either hair or eyes being different is important, but what exactly the differences is doesn’t matter,
So, skin color only matters in regards to believable characterization. Which means it only really matters for the Super kids, and the Royal house of Andor (because, Rand.)
The Two Rivers is, by necessity, fairly homogeneous. That’s what happens in a land with minimal to no outside contact. If one of these characters were a different ethnicity, it would change their characterization, with one exception.
Nynaeve.
She is already an outsider, of a kind. She already feels like she doesn’t belong. She is already not fully accepted by the townspeople. Swapping her ethnicity could be done with no trickle-down effect at all to either her plot, or the story at large.
As far as anyone else goes, it just doesn’t matter. Make Moiraine green, who cares? Make Bornhold Hispanic. It affects nothing. Just cast the best actor available.
Leigh, love the Eddie Izzard reference, made me laugh :)
After years of listening to them do all of the voices in the audiobooks I always thought michael kramer and kate reading needed roles. Always thought of michael kramer as doing something like voicing loyal or the darkone. And maybe someone from the white tower for kate. For alot of people they were the voice of WOT for nearly 26 years
@@@@@ 43, 44: Don’t mention animation to Harriet! The Ralph Bakshe (sp?) production of Lord of the Rings was particularly horrible.
I think Tania Raymonde would make a great Faile:
I simply cannot help but imagine John Schneider as Tam ever since I read AMoL because of his turn on Smallville as Jonathan Kent.
I think Julianne Moore is just a bit too old for Elayne’s mother. After seeing her go red head in Spartacus I would go with Lucy Lawless as Morgase.
I often imagined the Borderlanders as South Asian, so often imagined Lan as looking like Akshay Kumar? He’s in his late forties, a long-time martial artist, and over 6′ tall..
I always thought of Elyas and Thom being the other way around. Imagined Thom as looking just like Sam Elliot and could defiantly see Bridges as Elyas. Like the pick for Matt.
I defy your GoT moratorium and cast Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Rhuarc.
@@@@@ 10. Lara
OMG YES! Someone other than me has been picturing Grant Gustin as Mat! He’s so perfect!
Rand, Perrin, and Mat flee towards Shadar Logoth from the overwhelming pursuit of Shadow Spawn, inspired by Lan, they take up their own war cries:
Mat: “Carai an Caldazar! Carai an Ellisande! Al Ellisande!”
Perrin: “Manetheren! Manetheren!”
Rand (adjusting his goggles): “Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!”
Moiriaine: “The old blood still sings.”
Thom (sharing a glance with Moiraine): “It’s biodigital jazz, man!”
Agree with Karen B @48′ – Alex Pettyfer as Rand
I like most of these picks, but am so, so sooo not into Chloe Moretz for Egwene. I’d pick Hailee Steinfeld if I had to make a call. Great complexion, better energy in my humble estimation.
Also, I feel that Julianne Moore has come to be rather overexposed in these types of roles, so I would throw her in the bin with all of the LotR/GoT actors who would feel redundant in the WoT.
What, all talk of racial diversity, and not a word about sexism? I hardly recognize this place anymore ;)
We really ought to focus on the essentials, or we’ll pay a hefty price down the road. For example, I just can’t see Natasha Bordizzo getting a proper spanking from Penn Badgley.
(..and that should get them started :)
@19 skin cancer isn’t believed to be an evolutionary pressure on humans — it’s generally not fatal until after prime reproductive years. My evolutionary biologist friends tell me that most human appearance traits are thought to be sexually selected, rather than natural (survival, basically). Also, skin tones for groups at the equator are FAR from uniform (even for those that are indigenous/long-standing).
In general, I think we (fans of the books) should look for actors that can capture the PERSONALITY of the characters rather than any physical descriptions, unless they are key to the character (so, Galad, Berelain, Lanfear, etc. need to be gorgeous). After all, what does it matter if Rand has red hair? If the Aiel in the show all are dark-skinned or blonde or whatever,he just needs to be able to pass as possibly Aiel (based on whatever the show chooses to make Aiel, and it’ll probably be the ethnicity of the filming location, for cost reasons).
And a small town can be diverse, even if it’s been fairly isolated. Expecting the Superboys/Supergirls to all be white is probably not realistic after the debates about the lack of diversity in Game of Thrones and other genre shows.
I also think that the show might take a GoT approach in terms of location — I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Aiel and Seanchan before they were seen in the books. And since there’s no way they’ll be planning on 10+ seasons (and they’d need more to get all of the books in), the plot will be greatly pruned. I would be surprised if some of the less plot-centric stories (Morgase, 4000 pages of Perrin searching for Faile, etc.) aren’t gone entirely.
Which leads to my big questions for Leigh — what are your must-have scenes, and which plotlines (or even books) are you ok with dropping? This is assuming there are 6 seasons (and a movie?) or so.
Thanks again for all your great posts!
Casting of the main characters will probably be made up of relatively unknowns ($!).Maybe one of them, probably Moraine being a “Star” for Initial Publicity. The minor, but important characters could well be stars, to give the show publicity without killing it financially.
Some ideas for the cast:
Katie McGrath or Eva Green as Lanfear
Sam Heughan as Perrin (or possibly Mat)
Tobias Menzies as Talmanes
Henry Winkler aka “The Fonz” as Mat (In my dreams, alas)
Katheryn Winnick as Faile
Lucy Lawless as Morgase
Jenna Coleman as Egwene
Rhona Mitra as Nynaeve
Hugh Laurie as Lan
If I were the producer and/or director of the WoT series, I’ll take a lesson from Harry Potter and cast all the lead characters from unknown actors. That way, they can have the age correct. And no expectations except great acting.
I find this subject really difficult because as a trained actress whose now focusing on other things I would love so much to be cast in WOT as they have always been my favourite books but cant see how. Nynaeve, Min or Egwene would be my dream choices and those are my character looks esp Nyn when I had a waist long braid which I would wear all the time.
That aside Id really rather not see Hollywood or squeeky clean LA actors and LA style production for WOT like the recent Shannara adaptation. It just makes me want to punch the screen. The GOT adaptation is much better with mostly unknowns so you arent thinking of them by their previous roles or just a famous face ‘playing at part’.
However what I will add (and sorry if someone has already mentioned this, I havent read the comments) the actor who plays Jaime in OUTLANDER IS Rand Al Thor. He just is. I thought of it spontaneously on watching the show. He has the fighting prowess, the red hair and light eyes and most importantly the capacity for gentleness and innocence which always drew me to Rand at the start of the series and is the quality I most miss about him.
Ps Rufus Sewell or Goran visnjic need to play Demandred in 10 seasons time.
Starsaphire @85
Sam Heughan aka Jamie Frazer as Perrin (or possibly Mat). I agree could be an awesome Rand.
This is rich. Emma Stone is too old to play a character who’s approximately her own age, yet Nicholas Hoult, who is also 27, is not too old to play a character who’s 16ish when the books begin? And Dylan O’Brien, who’s 24? And Penn Badgley, who’s 29?!?
So, not so much of a problem. The Saga spans less than five years. As long as the players looks reasonably like their WoT starting age they should be able to act aging a few years.
Our problem IMHO is that we have fixated on certain actors/actresses for the WoT super kids probably biased toward their characters toward the end of the story. By the stories end, Robert Jordan managed to portray a bunch of teenagers transformed (by events) as mostly mature worldly characters far removed from their EotW beginnings.
The Series to be Casting Crew will really have to earn their paycheques on this one.
@88: the book takes place in only 2-3 years.
Book 4 – Perini and Faile get married. Book 13 they celebrate their ONE YEAR anniversary.
So you have Olver, a boy, who should only age 1 year over the course of about 5 seasons worth of TV. We see the drawback of that in GoT.
I see Book 1 & Book 2 both being one season each. The rest of the seasons will be a combination of books. Until the final one, which should be just book 14.
@85: Good luck in being cast as some real role – if it works out you can go to a casting.
I think the show should allow fans to participate as extras or something. I would go out of my way to be a random Brown sister in the Tower. I even have several shawls I could bring for them to approve the use of one.
I’m with you, gadget. The books are great and a TV show would likely be nothing more than a slightly-interesting adjunct story. I don’t expect much because the current trends in TV (senseless violence, horrible people raping and murdering innocent people, too much action) don’t allow the kind of story of maturation that WoT really tells.
This kind of exercise in casturbation is, I think, more fun than I can expect from a TV show these days. There are so many significant things they will get wrong, it will just be hard to watch even if it’s not overwhelmingly violent.
As to the question of ethnic diversity, we have no idea what most of the people on the continent look like except for the Aiel, Andorans, and Cairhienin, and certain specific characters (Leane, for example). Most important is the contrast between the Aiel and Andorans. Two Rivers folk look like other Andorans with the exception of the royals in Caemlyn, and Rand’s hair actually comes from his Caemlyner mom, not from the Aiel, but that’s misdirection. We have no idea what Taraboners look like. They could be played by anyone. The important part is consistency within the nationalities as they are depicted on the show, and that’s going to be very hard to keep solid. So, yet another thing for any adapter of these books to get wrong to the point of distraction.
The Asian influence on these books is so strong that we don’t need to have any external justification for having the various in-book ethnicities played by a diverse cast. The diversity once they get out of the Two Rivers is already in the books. I would rather just reread the books instead of worrying about whether people in Hollywood will get it right. I don’t have much faith that they will do anything interesting.
I really like Christian Bale for Padan Fain. I had briefly considered Andy Serkis, as pnysically, that’s more how I see Padan Fain, but I think Christian Bale could make it really scary, or maybe Jared Leto.
Just pointing out that “the nut-brown maid” is from a ballad written in 1502. It certainly doesn’t imply a person of color.
Sam Elliot would be more apropos to play Thom Merrilin, while I like Viggo Mortensen for Elyas.
some of your suggestions are inspired, e.g. Min, Rand also works for me, and Tam too. I had definitely thought of Perrin as blond/ginger,
Moiraine is also exactly as I had thought.
Frankly, to do WoT credit in my opinion they should take book 1 and make it into a movie. Then for books 2-13 do them over the course of 6 television seasons. Then for the last book make it once again a movie.
The MCU and Agents of Shield proved you can make a combination of movie/TV and make it seamless and with the same characters.
WHAT WHAT WHAT?
I actually don’t know who most of these actors are. But you can’t have Nynaeve looking so much older than Egwene or Elayne. Age her down or age them up. Likewise with Jet Lee. Agelmar should at least look older than Lan/Watanabe.
Donald Sutherland as Thom. That’s all I ask. I do like the suggested ones, but I’ve always pictured Donald Sutherland when I read the series.
As for the Saldaeans, I always imagined them as resembling Koreans.
Looking forward to seeing your choices for Siuan and various Aes Sedai. At least make up and prosthetics can make her look ageless and then remove them for when she gets stilled. But you might need to do the same for every other Aes Sedai to make the ageless look more uniform.
I’d totally want Megan Mullally for Siuan Sanche and Nick Offerman for Gareth Bryne
I think I’d flip Thom and Elyas. Something about Elliot’s permanent smirk seems a better fit for Thom to me.
@95: How would a 2 hour movie do the book more justice than 10-20 hours of TV?
Depending on the season length of the network.
@99: I would rather have Gina Torres for Siuan Sanche. She’s a beautiful ageless woman!
I’ve always pictured Michael Dorn as Lan. Sometimes with Klingon brow-ridges, sometimes not
We may not SEE Lews Therin for very long, but we’ll certainly hear him for most of the series. Mark Hamil?
@2 (and others who asked about an actual redhead to play Rand): may I suggest Justin Tinucci?
I can’t add much – lots of good ideas here. I do like Catriona Balfe for Moiraine. She’s got that sleek, precise elegance and can pull off that unconscious imperiousness I associate with Moiraine.
The Dude as Tom made me laugh out loud in a good way.
What about Aviendha!?
If you have Sean Bean, he MUST BE CAST AS LAN. Just to completely screw with the expectations of everyone who hasn’t read the books.
Also, your pick for Faile doesn’t have THE NOSE. She’d make a great Berelain, though.
I’d personally fan-cast Tom Felton as Galad. He’s handsome, and it would definitely contrast with his usual roles.
And Moiraine needs to be tiny. Her smallness is remarked on by many, and lamented several times in her POV chapters.
Great casting choices, with one exception: Faile. The nose is a real deal breaker: I always imagined someone with a Semitic/Arabic nose, Iranian or Israeli. Mediterranean works, as long as the nose fits. As someone mentioned, the actress playing Elektra in the DD TV series would do.
Also, I’m all for:
-Stiles as Mat.
-Swap between Elyas and Thom
-Molly C Quinn as Elayne
-Borderlanders I see as a mixture of middle-eastern (Saldaeans), Japanese (Shienarans) and crazy Germanic-Nordic beardos (Kandorans). Malkieri (and thus, Lan) feel more like a wildcard. I always pictured Lan as a tall, tan skinned fella, possibly native american. Not sure if there is a Native-American actor who could muster the physicality and gravitas of the last king of Malkier, but that would rock
I like this guy for Rand! Stefano Masciolini
He might be a little old now but I’ve always pictured Jim Byrnes (Joe from the Highlander TV series) as Thom.
Also I can get behind Molly Quinn and Grant Gustin for Elayne and Mat.
All these great red heads.
There is always Gual and the other Aiel. :-)
And speaking as a brown-eyed brunette, I’d like to see Egwene and Ny played by natural brown-eyed brunettes.
Y’all are forgetting one really important one…The Myrddraal.
What’s that? CG you say? No sir! We’ve got Doug Jones, aka “He who can play anything in makeup”. Observe:
I honestly didn’t agree with some of your choices but wasn’t outraged by them. If this were to be the real casting i’d be happy! I’m sure others have pointed out that you forgot Gareth Bryne. I personally think that Ogier should be CGI or mostly CGI and no specific actor should play them, besides a voice.
Lan Mandragoran is SO OBVIOUSLY Liam Neeson. It’s just not negotiable.
Always fun to see these! But I will say what always appealed to me about the series is that it always seemed like RJ switched things up constantly. Someone that might appear Korean did not dress Korean, instead they would look say…French Baroque. And Greeks would dress 14th century China…plus he really liked to mix things up so that it wasn’t even that simple. Bit of Japanese influence with some African mixed in and oh a little dabble of Persian to make it sparkle. So while I always saw it as extremely diverse, I just never saw it as so flat out simple as “their armor looks Asian, so they must be Asian too!”. ;)
Then again that might only be how I read things; that’s the thing with books, people can interpret things in vastly different ways..
@@@@@ 114. Anne Miles:
“Sheepherder, what I have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for creatures of the Shadow.”
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. :)
Funny that you have Hunter Parrish as Gawyn. I’d always pictured him as Rand.
And so I’ve gotten no work done in the last hour as I think about this. I’m too busy to give this list any justice. But I love all the comments and suggestions.
I think for the superkids, they should be fairly unknowns. I think I would rather leave those up to the powers that be on these conditions… Rand HAS to have red hair. Perrin DOES need to look like a blacksmith’s kid. Just growing into his manly bulk. Matt, that rebel kinda spark, like a young Christian Slater.
I always pictured Sam Elliot as Thom (but I realize he is getting too old to juggle and bounce around). And for Min, spot on with Ashley Greene. Judi Dench as Cadsuane is perfect imho. Luis Guzman as Loial.
Oh, and Lucy Lawless as Elaida or ANYTHING, just get her in there. Agreed.
Well Leigh Butler, I will have to respectively disagree on most of your choices… but I can agree with a few as you will see below
LAN – should be in his 40s for sure and tall…so I pick Hugh Jackman…..:)
MORAINE – should be short..young, beautiful but can pull off serious I like Frieda Pinto (from “Slumdog Millionaire”)
NYNEAVE- Sara Snook 28yrs old but is short, young looking, strong, and can really act! loved her in “Predestination”
ELAYNE –Kiersey Clemons from the movie – “Dope” nuff said!
MATT – Evan Peters who plays “Quicksilver” in Xmen Movies…no brainer here comical but serious actor
RAND – I agree! Nicolas Hoult is a great choice
PERRIN – I am at a loss and I am on the fence with your choice just let me pick Jon Snow! C’MON! :)
ELAYNE – I agree with you, Saoise Ronan would be a great choice !
THOM MERRILL – For me Liam Neeson jumped out at me!
Ishmael/Balzamon – Again agree Rufus Sewell works!
Loail – I picture deep voice thin but strong framed not round like Hagrid , still speculating
again all a pipe dream but fun to think on! :)
I think Emma Watson would make a great Nynaeve al’Meara. She is 25 and is used to fantasy. She was great as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies and she will be playing in the new Beauty and the Beast movie. I’llhave to think about who I’d like to play Rand, Mat and the other characters. I just want to see WOT on screen, personally I think it would be better on television as a mini series just as long as SyFy channel doesn’t get their hands on it, they would ruin it like they did MEarthsea.
I see Thom as more of an Anthony Hopkins or Billy Connolly character (if a bit younger) Weathered face from long years on the road. Eyes that can draw you in. The ability to play the hopeless and goofy old man or the deadly serious killer. And he would be able to pull off the voice of a bard when the time came to tell a tale in high chant.
I may not be as well-read WOT-wise as some, having only read Eye twice & the rest once, but I think these are spot-on! I agree that I will forever & ever think of Ken Watanabe as Lan, now. I love your fantasy draft picks. Let’s start lobbying now…with this cast, WOT would be beyond a blockbuster. They might have to invent a new word for this.
Oooohhhh…although I LOVE Sam Heughan as Rand!k
Karl Urban as Lan.
Why has no one thought of Aviendha? And as for color diversity, I have always pictured all the Aiel as very close to black. Certainly swarthy, as in Indians and Pakistanis. And sorry, Faile HAS to have a big nose!
I love your choices! I have just two (rather silly) caveats. First, for some reason I always pictured Min as black (absolutely NO text to support this, it was just the picture that formed in my mind). And secondly, I always pictured Faile as Arabian. Just sharing my own pre-concieved notions, since the topic of race is heavy both in this article and in discussions of Hollywood in general :)
I think a very strong case could be made for the Aes Sedai to be played by actresses who have had botox. I think that procedure sums up the whole strange looking “ageless, smooth skin” effect.
So throw Nicole Kidman in there somewhere, for instance.
Ah, While I totally agree with you that the borderlands have the most Asian influence, in my head, I always pictured them to be more West Asian than East Asian – ie, trending more towards India and Pakistan, or even the middle east. Faile, in my mind has always seemed Indian or Persian to me. Arafel, with their long twin braids with bells, calls to mind a kind of middle eastern/native american mashup.
Weirdly, and hear me out here- the East Asians of WOT are in Cairhien. A short, dark haired people, where the warrior’s convention is to shave the front half of their heads, with insanely complicated politics. If this doesn’t sound like some version of ancient china to you, I don’t know what does.
Of course, how this works out as a half-Asian-half white, blue eyed Elayne, Galad and Gawain, given that that their father Taringail Damondred is from my hypothetically chinese Cairhien, I have no idea, but I’m sort of tickled pink by the idea.
I really think Evanna Lynch would be excellent for Elayne.
I’ve wanted Oona Chaplin for Faile for a long time, ago I have no choice but to defy the GoT ban.
Sam Elliot is an absolute, but he should be Thom, if he were a little younger I would have cast him as Lan!
Team Jordan once posted a list from RJ’s notes of which actors he used as models for the characters. (If any studio is browsing this thread, please don’t take this is a sign that you should cast Affleck as Rand.) But it’s interesting to know that’s who RJ envisioned, probably in terms of a young guy with a conventionally handsome face.
She is too old now but I have always imagined Helena Bonham Carter playing the role of Nynaeve. And a young Michelle Pfieffer as Morgase.
I think Robert Sheehan would make the perfect Matrim Cauthon. I think Rand needs to look different than the typical cast since he’s Aiel so he should be played by someone Middle Eastern, American Indian, Pacific Islander or some dark skinned actor. They mention his Aiel features over and over again so I don’t think pale skinned actor will be right for Rand.
Keri Russell for Moiraine. She does threaten the Boys a few times, and I would believe she could kill someone.
Building on my Americans theme, Noah Emmerich as Bornhald. (Annet Mahendru can be Berelain later).
@134 – agree that Rand needs to look noticeably different at least from the other Two Rivers folk, and noticeably like the Aiel. But, it’s mentioned over and over (and over) again how the Aiel have pale/blond/red hair and light-colored eyes (in contrast to the darker coloring of Mat and Egwene). So I vote, cast white people for the the Aiel (including Rand), and non-white people (or, I don’t know, less white. less Northern European) for everyone else.
Also: I think Leigh’s pick for Rand is spot-on. Never heard of the actor before, but the kid in that picture looks 100% perfect. (Okay, I know the hair’s not really reddish, but I can imagine it is, a bit.)
I was thinking that Molly Quinn would be a fantastic Aviendha.
I think Sam Elliot, especially when he goes all dimples and impish grin, is Thom Merrilin…
Many stars are Big Fans of WoT, so the series may get lucky with casting some real superstars that will fit the budget.
And, what about dialects?
For starters we could have Andorians with BBC English, the Two Rivers folk Mid West USA, the Aiel Scottish, the Senchen Southern USA. Then there is Irish, Geordy, Welsh, Indian, South African Australian etc. Each Region instantly recognizable!
@141: Here you go
Rand, while not as broad chested as Perrin was still described as a huge man. Nicolas Hoult while the correct height, would need to put on like 50 lbs to fit the description of Rand properly. I understand the majority of people watching the movie/TV show wouldn’t have read the books, but still. I completely hate Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Reacher is supposed to be 6’5″ 220 lbs.
1.i’ll cast hugh jackman to play lews therin.
2.deborah ann woll to play aviendha.
3.the perfect actress,in my opinion, to play lanfear was always going to be catherine zeta jones
but she is too old now,so maybe i’ll cast her to play moiraine.
4.julianne moore ia a terrible choice to play morgase,she is 55 and looks 65,i’ll cast amber
heard as morgase,although she is only 30,a little bit of makeup can turn her into a stunning
40+ years old queen.(morgage is about 43 years old post last battle).
I echo swapping Sam Elliot and Jeff Bridges as far as the aesthetic for Thom vs Elyas is concerned, but in terms of the necessary presence/voice for a gleeman/bard/etc, I can see why Jeff Bridges would be a better selection for Thom.
I love the Ken Watanabe as Lan suggestion. Diversity (or lack thereof) will definitely be a casting issue for WoT (especially for The Eye of the World) and I am curious to see how the studio and Team Jordan choose to address it. As someone above suggested, Nynaeve may be the easiest option to introduce diversity into our Superkids, with Rand and Elayne being the least likely candidates based upon the dictates of the story. It is something that deserves consideration; I look forward to seeing what the producers do.
Henry cavill for lan
How about Sarah Michelle Gellar for Moraine?
I see a lot of posting with actors that do not look like the characters of the book. A blue-eye Perrin like Jonny Weston? Really? That is a disgrace.
We want this properly done.
14 books that span about two years of time makes me think they should animate the series. They could probably get away with doing multiple books a season. That would help. I think Amanda Seyfried should play Nynaeve. I like Molly C Quinn as Elayne and Paul Bettany as Thom. I’ve always thought of casting women that were in there early thirties for the majority of the aes sedai due to the weird aging effect. So with that in mind I’d choose Jenna Coleman as Moiraine.
chiming in –
watching the 100 today after reading this article it struck me that Alycia Debnam Carey (aka Lexa on the show) would be a great Egwene! she’s pretty and young-looking, but has the imperious attitude down. and also she’s familiar with kicking butt and playing in fantasy settings on screen!!
I agree that the racial mix sticking to the books is not so important – one, because the WoT world has mixed up races from our own; and two, because at the end of the day, as long as it’s not an important character trait (as discussed above), race swapping has no impact on the story.
I did tend to think of Cairhein as looking like a mix between France and China.
Nick Nolte as Lews Therin. Taylor Lautner as Perrin, because why not. Max Minghella as Mat. Michael Keaton as Tam. John Glover as Ishamael. Kristen Kreuk as Egwene. Lucy Liu as Moraine. Meagan Good from the Minority Report tv show as Nynaeve. Rand is the tough one. I think we’re going to have to give some guy contacts and a dye job. Maybe give Jesse Eisenberg lifts.
Did I see Mads Mikkelsen as Lan? Let’s do this.
I don’t know if She can act, but Skin from Skunk Anansi looks like Semirhage to me:
And that link isn’t working. How about this one?
http://www.wearex.net/thepit/index.php?topic=10837.240
@@@@@$!#!
Here: 
That should do it. Geez.
@meme – Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine Akshay Kumar for Lan, but now that you mention it, I can see it totally working!
Loial…. I believe there is no better actor than Ron Perlman!
@76: excellent point. A distinctive, powerful voice suited to command but also capable of going a little crazy.
What’s Hugo Weaving doing these days anyways?
– I know she’s a bit old for the character, but Kate Beckinsale would be an awesome Nynaeve, or maybe Elaida.
– Katrina Law as a senior Aes Sedai.
– I’ve seen some people calling for Gary Oldman as Ishamael, and I happen to agree.
– I’d see Emma Stone more as Aviendha than Nynaeve. Nynaeve just has an air of dignity about her (deserved or not, it’s there) that I can’t see Emma Stone being able to pull off.
That’s all I have now.
Sorry about the double post.
– Mark Pellegrino (Lucifer) as a Forsaken. Asmodean maybe? Or maybe as Fain. He can switch from kind of OK to maniac pretty fast. I almost want him to be Demandred, but the actor is too entertaining for the little amount of time Demandred is on screen.
– I also agree with Mr. Gibbs being Domon.
@161 “Nynaeve just has an air of dignity about her”… really? As time went by she ended up becoming comic relief though.
Molly Quinn add Elaine sounds perfect. Dame Judy or Maggie Smith as Cadsuan would be fantastic. In no way should Keanu be Lan. What about Emma Watson as Nyneve or possibly Egwene?
Kate Mulgrew can do a good Cadsuane.
@163
She did. Most of the comedy came from the silliness despite all of that, IMO.
Honestly ethnicities in Wheel of Time never made sense for me with their really uniform nations and ethnic groups with no real reason for such diversity… except Pattern I guess? Because really I can consider that this mixed people of post-Breaking United World scattered into tiny tribes at first managed to evolve a bit under different circumstances and their own ethnic mixes, but modern nations carved from Empire of Hawking, carved from nations of second/third of Third Age carved from post-Trolloc Wars carved from great kingdoms that appeared after Breaking. Really, there are no place, nor time, no basic materials for Saldeans to be unifromely hook-nosed and black haired, for Caihriniens to be uniformely kawaii, for Tarabonian be whatever weird things they are… Thousand years is really not enough for such uniformity.
So I really don’t care about nations style. Give me redhaired Rand, kawaii Moiraine and Faile’s nose and be done with it.
I’d make personaly Moiraine to by played by Japanese actress dressed like European lady, and Lan to be played by some European Dolph Lundgren like type in Japanese armour just for the fun ;)
Agreed with #42 on Perrin needing to look the part of a blacksmith. He’s “a man and a half wide”, and his broad shoulders are brought up more than one in the narrative. His size and strength are both pretty much the basis of his careful nature. If they take those away from him, it just won’t be the same Perrin.
Also, at the risk of sounding terribly nitpicky, whoever they do cast as Perrin needs to have eyes that aren’t small and squinty-like. Wolflike eyes are a Big Thing when it comes to Perrin, so you want such eyes to actually be apparent, as most everyone who looks at Perrin after his eyes have changed take notice of them.
Oh, this takes me back tot the times of the Robert Jordan newgroups of the ’90ties. We had all-out-flaming-wars about casting a WOT movie. Good times.
I want 100% fresh faces, I want absolutely zero famous person casted for this show.
I like your choices for the most part. I’m expecting Rand to be much taller of the three superboys and Perrin much more bulky/ obviously very strong.
And Sean Bean needs to be in. Somewhere. Somehow.
And die of course.
Summer Glau as Min.
Alan Tudyk/Andy Serkis as Padan Fain
Egwene al’Vere should be Bonnie Wright…
Thom Merrilin should be Charles Dance…
Morgase Trakand should be either Annette O’toole or Diane Lane…
I like the idea of having relatively unknown younger actors play the roles of the core 6. However, there are some talented up and coming actors in the industry too.
I could see Morgan Lily or even Deborah Ann Woll playing Elayne.
Caitlin Charmichael or Lily Collins as Egwene.
Taron Egerton could possibly pull off Perrin’s look, but not 100% sold on his acting ability, alternatively Alex Pettyfer could manage the role.
For Rand, I thought Michael Pitt would definitely be able to pull off the tortured soul parts of the story, but at 37 hes a bit too old.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse gives off the cheeky vibe that Matt needs, but is getting into that slightly too old bracket.
I agree with your Choices of Hunter Parrish and Colton Haynes for Gawyn and Galad.
I haven’t been able to decide on an actress who fits my idea of Nynaeve as yet.
Lan Mandragoran should be Joe Manganiello…
and
Moiraine Damodred should be either (a) Gemma Arterton, (b) Mary Elizabeth Winstead
or (c) Hayley Atwell
OK. I took a shot at this and made an IMDB list. Only three non-negotiable castings for me. Sam Elliot has to be THOM not Elyas.
Rowan Atkinson would be the perfect Padan Fain.
And Michael Dorn’s face and voice would be perfect for Loial.
What do you think?
While I respect the idea of not including GoT actors, it really does eliminate some spectacular choices, especially when they’re only minor on GoT.
For instance:
Davrem Bashere – Alexander Siddig (and not just for the similarity to “Bashir”)
Natalie Dormer – Siuan Sanche
Indira Varma – Leanne
Other ideas:
Liandrin – Rila Fukushima
Lan – Clive Standen (Vikings)
Asmodean – Joseph Fiennes
Tom – Max Von Sydow
Fain – Brad Dourif
Demandred or Taim – Idris Elba (since we spent how many years saying Demandred = Taim)
Logain – Oscar Isaac
Tall, young, pretty, red hair? In my mind only Cameron Monaghan can play Rand. He’s even musically talented, and an experienced TV actor. If you’ve seen Shameless or Gotham you know that he can definitely play crazy!
Then again, I can’t decide if I would rather have him play Rand or Kvothe from Name of the Wind.
How about Reeve Carney for Galad:
I’ve been following this discussion with some interest & amusement. Some of the choices are pretty brilliant all in all. However- and this is a big one – just about all of the choices for the Bard Thom Merrilin all fail to get one important thing right up front: he is a singer. A singer of great talent and a performer who – when not fighting the myrrdraal and furthering court intrigue- can rivet and inspire an audience with the very best. He is, in fact, the very best of his ilk. The actor who portrays him must also interpret music, sing, rivet his audience with astounding music (not made-for-TV pablum) and be >well versed in the ballad tradition< . Why not cast a singer who is of an age with Thom Merrilin, has proven through years of performance the he can do all of the above *and* is well steeped in the ballad tradition? One name comes immediately to mind: from the “great folk-scare” that brought us Fairport Convention, and with that legendary ensemble, the ancient songs protest, murders and magical mayhem with a back beat: I can readily see Richard Thompson as filling the bill with style, musical excellence and the kind of charisma and polish that a character such as Thom Merriln requires. IMHO: Jordan might have written the role for Thompson. I will let the man “sing” for himself with a song that could have come from any tavern in Jordan’s world (but didn’t): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9veqW Yynww&list=PLyC9-EpySTOTbVK12MR78oz4yPGo6_iNL&index=86 It is only unfortunate that Bert Jansch has left the world an cannot – also- find a place in the musical scoring of the series. It would win every award available.
Apologies – here’s that URL again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9veqWYynww
Since someone brought up Kvoth, I’d also like to see Aidan Turner in that role.
A possible suggestion for Mat: Conner Jessup. He played Ben (the middle son) in Falling Skies.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Love Lucy Lawless as Elaida!
Hate Pee-Wee Fain though. James Callis IS Fain. Plus he has experience playing a self-interested bastard with someone whispering genocidal musing in his ears.
Which led me to think of a whole BSG-inspired casting:
Edward James Olmos as Niall
Grace Park as Siuan
A brunette No.6 as Lanfear
Katee Sackhoff as Birgitte
Helo would make a good Logain
For me, Moiraine has always been and will always be Melina Kanakaredes.
I would reverse your picks for Morgase and Elaida.
Someone mentioned giving Lucy Lawless Berelain, but I’m pretty sure that Berelain is between Nynaeve and Elayne age-wise so she would need a younger actress. Maybe you could put Emily Blunt in that role.
Dolf lungren as Lan. He was never described as good looking. Only to Nyneave
@186, How about a different Emily for Berelain. Emily VanCamp.
The actor that played Peter in Guardians looks like a Rand but actually played a good Matt. No such luck on TV though. They can’t cast a Lan to suit me. Fain is Roarshack from Watchmen. Any way if they do TV they should just make new adventures based on the books and skip the books so they don’t Butcher it before it gets the Harry Potter budget.
I always thought Rand would look a bit like Neo. But this is a great choice!
I like all the picks with 2 exceptions:
I don’t like Julianne Moore for Morgase not that I don’t like Julianne Moore, I just don’t see it. I’d pick Meryl Streep for Morgase.
For Nanaeve I’d pick Zena Grey or Annie Thurman, both younger than Emma Stone and not bad for acting given that they are young. I think Annie Thurman would be the best but what do I know?
*correction on my post, Zena Grey isn’t young but she looks very young and can pull young off.*
Sorry for the necro but I’ve only just discovered this.
Considering that the Two Rivers is similar to Wales, and Andor to England some white washing is inevitable. That said I’ve always imagined the Cairhienin as stronlyg influenced by feudal Japan so I would prefer to see someone of Asian descent cast as Moiraine. Ashkay Kumar for Lan is a brilliant pick
I’m going with a bunch of relatively new/unknown actors since the cast is so huge it’ll have to be filled out with “cheaper” options. Mind you, nearly all of these have been chosen entirely on looks/height/etc.
Rand – Andrei Lenart (Rand is between 6’4″-6’6″ in the books)
Mat – Eddie Christian D’Angelo (Mat is about 2″ shorter than Rand)
Perrin – Blake Jenner (Perrin is about Mat’s height; Blake has the frame to be Perrin, but he’d need to spend quite a bit of time in the gym to really bulk up.)
Egwene – Ciara Bravo
Nynaeve – Cristine Prosperi
Moraine – Jovanna Huguet
Lan – Clive Owen (I’ve always pictured him as Lan)
Elayne – London Freeman
Min – Rebecca Hanssen
Aviendah – Grace Victoria Cox
Tuon – Zuri Reed
Faile – Hunter Ansley Wryn
Damer Flynn – John Kassir
Logaine – Ben Barnes
Gareth Bryne – Peter Capaldi (Look at the art of Lord Bryne on WoT Wiki…)
Thom – Sam Elliot (I have no idea how anyone can NOT see this as the only casting choice for Thom.)
Bayle Domon – Kevin McNally
Birgitte – Katee Sackhoff
Siuane – Rache Weisz
Verin – Kathy Bates
Couladin – Zack Ward
Asmodean – Johnny Depp (Probably wouldn’t happen, but I see him filling this role well.)
Demandred – Jason Isaacs
Lanfear – Summer Altice
Moghedien – Helena Bonham Carger
Rahvin – Darri Ingolfsson
Semirhage – Lupita Nyong’o
Aran’gar – Rebecca Van Cleave
Rand should be played by Alexander Ludwig from Vikings! He looks the part being tall with reddish hair…… Cant wait to see what they come up with!
Ok, most these people’s picks for Mat are ok, but MILES TELLER (Divergent series). In my mind he couldn’t be any better. As I watched Alleigant I just kept thinking, “Wow, he is just absolutely perfect for Mat. Dylan O Brien just doesn’t seem very mischievous to me. I liked just about all the rest of your picks, but Thom and Elyas should be swiched. From the start I imagined Thom as Sam Elliot. In my mind, (And I’m assuming in quite a few others), he’s perfect.
While I liked your choice for Min, most of the other choices you made seemed way off base. Check out this casting call blog. The author did an amazing job, SPOT ON!
https://atreacherousmemory.wordpress.com/category/casting/
He looks amazing!!
Not complete, but it’s a start:
Emond’s Field/The Two Rivers
Tom Holland as Matrim Cauthon
Melissa Benoist as Egwene al’Vere
Emma Watson as Nynaeve al’Meara
David Harbour as Tam al’Thor
The Forsaken
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Ishamael
Michael Fassbender as Demandred
Kate Winslet as Graendal
Charlize Theron as Lanfear
Stephen Amell as Sammael
Viola Davis as Semirhage
Rosmund Pike as Moghedien
Guy Pearce as Asmodean
Cillian Murphy as Balthamel
Mike Colter as Rahvin
Ellen Page as Mesaana
The Aiel
Damien Lewis as Rhuarc
Deborah Ann Woll as Aviendha
Helen Mirren as Sorilea
Sam Heughan as Couladin
The White Tower/Aes Sedai
Natalie Portman as Moiraine Damodred
Hayley Atwell as Siuan Sanche
Eva Green as Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan
Tilda Swinton as Cadsuane
Eve Myles as Verin Mathwin
Laura Dern as Sheriam Bayenar
Lizzy Kaplan as Leane Sharif
Kiera Knightly as Alviarin Friedhen
Amanda Seyfried as Liandrin Sedai
The Black Tower/Asha’man
Adrien Brody as Mazrim Taim
Ian Somerhalder as Logain Ablar
Andor/Cairhein/Murandy
Rachael Taylor as Elayne Trakand
Rooney Mara as Tigraine/Shaiel
Stanley Weber as Galad Damodred
Kristin Ritter as Min Farshaw
Mayene/Tear/Illian
Nina Dobrev as Berelain sur Paendrag Tanreall
Saldaea/Kandor/Arafel/Sheinar/Malkier
Dichen Lachman as Queen Tenobia
Kimiko Glenn as Faile Bashere
The Seanchan
Lupita Nyong’o as Tuon/Fortuona
The Heroes Of The Horn/Age of Legends
Dianna Agron as Birgitte Silverbow
Has anyone seen anything about this? It looks like a cast list for the Wheel of Time series on HBO. http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074590729/
My only comments would be to switch Thom and Elyas. I’ve personally always pictured Sam Elliott as Thom. Not sure about Lan being of Asian decent (though the Seanchan definitely are) but I can’t picture any other actor so Ken Watanabe would be good. Other than that I can’t (currently) think of any other changes.
@200, that IMDB list looks to be user created. I liked a lot of the choices though. Eva Green for Lanfear is inspired.
I see the lady from Salem as Lanfear.
For the sake of the show it needs to be animated. an epic this long will take 8-10 real seasons to do it justice. That is nearly a decade of filming and growing up. This whole series is set over 2-3 years with are heroes starting at 15-18. Plus the sfx will be crappy unless the budget is HUGE. All of the actors chose are great but I’ve action just isn’t realistic.
I have always imagined Galad Damodred as Bradley James.
For some reason, I’ve always had that image of Orlando bloom as Lan, with the Legolas-like look that he had in LoTR. And he’d be perfect for the role of a role with the perfect nonchalance that he can portray.
Besides your casting-which I think is (mostly) perfect)- Look up the YouTube channel Reflections of Sound. He, as well as getting the music Perfect, uses a picture for his video backgrounds that is exactly spot-on for Mat, Perrin, and Rand. It’s not actually real people, unfortunately, but still.
I Think The Cast is awesome…….. the colour is not a problem…. but don forget siuan and you should not forget the part that the dragon mount is created by lewes therin thalamon its important thank you……
As a candidate for Loial I would like to nominate Anthony “Bigfoot” Silva. You mentioned Andre the giant and, well, this is ever better. Aside from the fact off course that he has no acting experience and his english is far from slick, lets just say that he’d need a lot less makeup and cgi than most other people. He also seems to be a bit of a gentle giant and quite warm-hearted irl so in other words he’d do perfectly.
Happy Loial (also notice the size of his hands):
Pissed off Loial:
I’m currently going through the books again, after hearing about the potential for a show. Ever since I was 12 and I first picked up EotW, I’ve been picturing Viggo Mortensen for Lan.
I couldn’t help myself. I have been longing for a new fantasy sf thriller and when I happened upon this blog today I was…. ecstatic…Shall we say? However, the choice for Lan from the original blogger was totally wrong and while some of the other choices were exceptionally accurate, and I certainly can’t, for the life of me think of a better choice to offer, one MUST take into consideration the character builder Jordan gave us when he invented with almost seemingly magical clarity and without all of the useless drivel I have seen from some other authors, the true image of Lan Mandragoran king and exile, it would seem that tall strong muscle glistening every girls wet dream of a hunk of pure un-bridaled sex on a stick eat your heart out mummy this ain’t the after school special should certainly be someone FAR more epic than Keanu Reeves but we are certainly getting warmer. Maybe I can suggest someone… Taylor Kinney? Lol I have long thought this ageless serious of epic proportion should have been made into a movie series but a TV series??? How many of us are re-reading these books just so we can refresh our memories of the most epic moment in our lives when we got to enjoy something so out of this world?
I love and respect all of you. I am not trying to ruffle feathers. I love Wheel of Time. I love reading the books. I love my mental images of the characters and places. I have always believed that Robert Jordan’s highly descriptive writing style was all I ever needed to get a marvelous picture of the Wheel of Time world. I do not want to see ANY of these actors faces in my head when I think of these beloved characters. Is it not enough that every time we think about Aragorn and Legolas that we see Hollywood actor faces instead of having our own imaginations and the skills of the writer to provide us with imagery of these characters? I won’t go on about how much I love WoT. I know that there are people in these comments that love it as much and more than I do. But WoT has always felt sacred to me. I do not want it tainted by Hollywood. I can’t help but feel like everyone is trying desperately to find the next Game of Thrones. But WoT is too sacred to me for the Hollywood treatment. These actors don’t care about the characters they’re playing. Not to the extent that we do. I can’t bare to see Rand al’Thor reduced to alate night guest/sex symbol. Oh well, I don’t want to be insulting or overly negative. These are just my thoughts on the subject. I do wholeheartedly believe WoT would work fantastically in an animated movies/series/mini series. Animation would allow for a much more accurate portrayal of the people and places of Randland, without being so intrusive to our own imaginations. Sorry if you disagree and this opinion upsets you. That’s not my intention. I just love these characters and places and don’t want them tainted by money and real world imagery.
Actually, scratch my last comment. They should just get Eddie Murphy to play everyone.
We have to have Manu Bennett in this series somewhere. I have always pictured him as Lan but he could just as easily play Tam since both are very adept with a sword.as Manu is. I would also throw Michael Kramer in as an option for Tom Merrillyn. The voice for him is the key and with him as the narrator in the books it would do well for the tv series have him do the same. Victoria Justice would make an awesome Lanfear or Barilane.
I get that you stuck to book 1, and she doesn’t come in until 2, but Lanfear is a pivotal character. I always thought Living Tyler would be great for her.
Johnny Depp as Thom Merrilin
I think he could pull off the dark yet cheery Thom Merrilin the best..
I don’t know if this will be read or not since your article was posted back in May, but I just read it and am HUGELY excited at the prospect of a WOT TV show. I do not think you need to worry so much about how “white” your casting choices are for the reasons you’ve already explained, but also because when Game of Thrones started, the same thing happened. The only casting choices that could have been considered racially diverse were the Dothraki and only Khal Drogo was prominent among them. As for your casting choices, I have no real problem except Thom Merrilin and Padan Fain. For Thom, I think a better choice would be Timothy Omundson. If you took his role as King Richard in “Galavant” and meshed it with his role as Cain in seasons 8 & 9 of “Supernatural,” then you would have Thom down to a “T”. As for Fain, while I will admit to being surprised how good Paul Reubens was on “Gotham” as Penguin’s father, I think a better choice would be Robert Knepper. He has a solid resume of playing detestable and rodent-y villains such as Theodore Bagwell (T-Bag) from “Prison Break” and Samuel Sullivan from season 4 of “Heroes”.
I also don’t think the super six have to be teenagers. In fact, the way Jordan describes them in his books, they can easily pass off as young men and women (college age). I know they are assigned specific ages, but I think for a TV adaptation that would be a rather less important detail to meet. Therefore, I think a good alternative actor choice for Rand would be Jared Padalecki. I don’t really see Emma Stone as Nynaeve. I think Katie McGrath would do a really good job, though.
Mila Kunis as Min , Nichole Kidman as Morgase
I can’t get on board with your Lan. Everything else is perfect.
i think a hugh jackman or gerald butler should be in there somewhere, maybe perrin
Wow, I hadn’t even considered Jeff Bridges for Thom! My fan casting had Donald Sutherland in that role.
He’s probably most well known now for hisome portrayal of President Snow in The Hunger Games
I always pictures Thom looking like Billy Connolly. And I must say, I love the idea of Keanu Reeves as Lan. I pretty much agree with everyone else you chose.
Domnhall Gleeson as Rand Al’Thor should work.
I’ve always pictured Lan as Henry Cavill. Tall, blue eyes and sort of regal.
Darby Hinton as Gareth Bryne. Someone like Ralph Waite(John Walton Sr.) for Tam al’Thor. Jim Caviezel as Lan. Alex Pettyfer could do as Rand if he weren’t so pretty. The Rock as Furyk Karede. Julianne Moore for Morgase? No. Maybe Sheriam Sedai, she’s no Morgase. Nicholas Hoult might be a good Mat, but not Rand. Most definitely Sam Elliot for Elyas Machera.
I always pictured Henry Cavill as Perrin. That scene in Man of Steel on the boat: bearded, very broad-shouldered:
As for Lan, I always pictured Anson Mount:
Eddie Redmayne as Rand for sure!
Also, I’m afraid that he may be getting too old for the role, but Garett Hedlund was my choice for Mat. To me, he is Mat.
Kuddos, it takes lots of research and man hours to piece together the best actors to bring out the characters’ true personality. If I may make a couple of suggestions: I am curious about the choice for al’Lan Mandragoran, as I have also wondered about the striking similarities between Shieneran culture and our Asian cultures, but I must admit, that the experience of the actor must be able to fit the character being played. I do think that Hugh Jackman would be a much better fit for that puzzle. He carries that “wolf waiting to bit” aura and can easily play the part of a Blade Master. Reading “Crown of Swords” and “Winter’s Heart” when he is emotionally unstable, I simply cannot picture a better actor…
Some of these choices I am ablolutely extatic about, and agree they would be a perfrect fit: Dylan O’bryan is perfect for Mat, and Nicholas Holt I think could be made to overcome the height issue with the use of good cinematography; I think Emily Blunt for Nynaeve is albolutely perfect both in character, niche, and personality, and I honestly thought of her character as hard to find but that’s was a great choice; I also agree that your choices for both Elyas and Thom are interchangeable for now if not better by switching them altogether; I also agree that Bonnie Wright would be a better fit as a base. However, the appearance can easily be changed to a great degree to fit the accuracy of the Novel, the actors do need a good base to go with. Understand guys, that just like camouflage, you have to start with a lighter base. You can always darken it up, but if you start to dark, it is harder to go lighter…that being said PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, lets keep the final product as accurate to the Novel as Peter Jackson dit with the Lord of the Rings. And Egwene was often mistaken for an Aiel Wise One when she was such, by other Aes Sedai…when I think of Aiel I picuture a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Romani (Gypsy), dressed like a Persian assassin, and Tinkers I picture the traditional dark-haired Gypsies. Although red hair seems to be almost common in both mythical races.
@@@@@ 41 WoW I agree, Judi Dench is just how I see her, not impressed by Rand or his 500 Ashaman…
@@@@@90 I feel your pain, but I won’t lose hope. Hollywood has put a bad taste in my mouth already for bastardizing two elite Novels (Sword of Truth, and Shannara), they wouldnt dare destroy another one. Especially, one that is very comparable to the Lord of the Rings in its elaborate detail. If Hollywood messes this one up, I will have lost all faith in their ability remake any Novel…
You’ve forbidden using GOT cast yet you’ve taking a fairly close look alike to Sophie Turner for Elayne. Just go with Sophie, you know you want to and She’d be perfect.
Like most of you choices, have a problem with Loial, the actors are great but Loial is still young himself, to me Robbie is to old. You need a gentle giant, unsure of himself and young. Don’t have any ideas but that’s what I think you need. Loial has to be able to grow as well.
People from the Two Rivers are described as Dark haired, and brown eyed, with darker than white skin (except for Rand) so, casting Emma Stone as Nynaeve is a bit like casting Emma Stone as a native Hawaiian.
I’ve always thought of Michelle Rodriguez as Nynaeve and since she only channels in beast mode and Michelle Rodriguez is the walking embodiment of beast mode it seems like a match.
Plus, I can easily imagine her getting after the Michael Fastbender I’d cast as Lan because while I don’t disagree with making bold or colorblind casting decisions I think it matters a little to try and depict the world and people as described in the books and Lan’s key features are a hard planed face and ice blue eyes.
Dylan O’Brien works for me to play Matt. Though Penn Badgley would also make a decent Matt or more age appropriately Tallanvor.
Perrin needs to be built, young, and beardy, Jason Momoa 15 years ago or Joe Mangeniello 20 years ago…
Chloe Grace Moritz would make a better Elayne than an Egwene.
For a long time I liked to think of Egwene as being played by Laura Fraser from A Knight’s Tale but I think she’s aged out of the role now.
So maybe someone like, Sarah Greene, who played Hecate on Penny Dreadful and is currently on Ransom. She would make either an amazing Egwene or Moiraine though Janet Montgomery looks almost exactly like the depiction of Moiraine from the New Spring graphic novel so…I’m down.
Penny Dreadful is incidentally also where I would pull my ideal Thom Merrilin as I would love to see him played by Timothy Dalton, though Jeff Bridges is a bang on choice and I’d totally accept that, I just think Dalton has more of an edge and more sex appeal.
Model Fenn Sean looks a lot like Rand to me. and I think Nicholas Holt is a great actor, so I’d be fine with him in that roll. girl who played his sister on Skins Kaya Scodelario could be another strong prospect for Egwene. Their casting together would also shorthand their relationship dynamic for me so…I’d like to see that…though she is blue eyed and Rand is supposed to be the only light eyed person in the Two Rivers…maybe Patrick Schwarzenegger…as Rand?
Galad should be played by Nick Bateman though I really and truly want to see him playing Kaladin from the Storm Light Archive.
Faile I have always pictured as musician Tracy Bonham but in terms of actual casting I’d go with irish actress Charlie Murphy from Love/Hate and Rebellion (also starred Sarah Greene) pretty girl, Bold Nose. her mother would of course be played by Angelica Houston.
My favorite thing about the idea of a WoT movie or series is the opportunity to put really big female names in small Aes Sedai roles, and relative unknowns in the main roles.
Robbie Coltraine as Loial is a pretty lazy selection given that anyone can be made giant with camera tricks and Loial is distinctly without a beard through most of the series because he’s an Ogier minor, and Coltraine doesn’t communicate the youth of the role at all.
Cumberbatch as Asmodean. (obvs) that’s my piece of lazy casting)
I’d rather see Lucy Lawless is Siuan Sanche than Elaida.
Morgase I’ve always thought of as Nichole Kidman.
Aviendha Laura PreponI’m
Paul Reubens is the BEST FREAKING PADAN FAIN FAN CASTING I HAVE EVER SEEN. Bravo!
Borderlands = asian
Andor etc = whites
Sea Folk/Atha’an Mie’re = blacks
so I love the Dylan O Brien choice for matrim however I’m super bummed because in my head I know Anton Yelchin would have been blissfully perfect!
As long as we are in fantasyland, how about Billy Connelly for Thom and Gerard Butler as Tam?
Gerald McRainey as Gareth Byrne
In the book they were all late teens/early 20s and Nynaeve was 28. Great casting choices either way, spot on with Lan and Moiraine. Consider Jennifer Lawrence as Aviendha. Moretz I see more as one of Mat’s sisters. Bode perhaps?
I agree with the suggestions for some darker skinned actors to fit the Two Rivers better. As a long time reader of WoT I have been hoping for this TV series for a long time. I do enjoy most of these picks personality wise. I would say that Dylan’s personality fits Mat perfectly, that OCD hyperactiveness he brought to Teen Wolf would be just right. I second (or third or whatever) the above comments naming Kellen Lutz for Perrin, though again he is a bit tol light skinned to fit the character descriptions from the book. All of that being said, I do understand that creative license will be necessary for casting, there is just no way enough actors “of the right coloring” are going to be available to fill the specifically needed character descriptions.
Luke Bracey for Elaine’s brother.
Lot of good ideas here. I’ll just add one thing. Perrin should definitely be a sandy-blonde.
Rand: Connor Weil
Haven’t seen it said in here yet, but you need someone older, more grizzled to play Gareth Byrne. How about Stephen Lang?
If you want someone a little younger, Josh Brolin…or maybe even Tom Hardy.
I will be your rand
Don’t understand the argument about need for increased diversity: it shouldn’t be an interpretation, but an adaptation. Showrunners should be loyal to an author’s work and if you have a problem with Jordan’s work, take it up with him. Don’t steal characters.
The only people explicitly described as black are probably the Athan Miere and Seanchan (part of them). Shara was supposed to be Asian.
And how would they explain a homogenous population of darkerskinned people in a Two Rivers climate? I always pictured them as very British/Celtic.
What about Eddie Redmane for Rand?
Jordan liked to mess around with real world expectations of race. (Ginger people living in the sweltering desert anyone). My impression was that while many of the cultural influences were oriental the skin tones of the borderlands were mostly white.
A good list. Lucy Lawless as Elaida was an eye-opener… And I mean that quite seriously. Had been on the look-out for a perfect suit for this match, and while all characters are relevant and should be ideally cast, some are ‘favourites’. And while I still hold true to the fact that I think Angie Harmon would be an appropriate match for Elaida, Lawless would be a close-second. (In fact, it’s hard to imagine how it could have slipped one’s mind). And being cast, granted, it’s one of those roles from the book characters that later becomes ‘hard to imagine as someone else playing them’ parts, once the characters make it onto the live adaptations onto the silver screen. A much better fit for Galad still needs to be found, as no one has quite hit the mark on any casting suggestions I’ve seen so far. Hoult has the potential to portray Rand’s personality well, if not being ideal for the part looks-wise. Egwene seems alright. Morgase as Julianne Moore is another treat. Cadsuane needs to be someone who looks like Meryl Streep (and then, in ‘The Devil Weas Prada’ version of her – yet still, not actually be Streep). And Verin should be someone akin to Kathy Bates, and have something of the mischief of Imelda Staunton’s expressions (especially as Dolores Umbridge). Oona Chaplin might make for a good Faile. And Thom needs to be Sam Elliott… Oh, and this just in ( – from the corners of my mind): Brenton Thwaites for the Asha’man recruit, Jahar Narishma.
Most of your pick are so spot on but if you swapped your picks for rand elayne and egwene for the picks that #48 karenb has shown and faile with #71 youve got them all right other than Perrin and lan, lan has always, in my mind, been a large man more like Dwayne Johnson or Vin Deisel and perring should be shorter than the others but barrel chested and thick armed like a proper blacksmith….. I have done blacksmithing in the past and it requires muscle
Sam Heughan as Rand!
I know she’s too old now, but I always thought Holly Marie Combs would have made a perfect Nynaeve. She has just the right amount of attitude and humor to pull it off. If this had gone into production 10 years ago I’d be campaigning for her.
I would cast it the other way, Bridges as Elyas and Sam Eliot as Thom Merrilin
Flip the script.
Sean Bean plays Lan.no, he doesnt die. Or better yet the actor playing Jamie Lannister.
Leslie Rose as Morgase or Elayne? “You no nothing Rand al’thor!”
I like the Cathy Bates Cadsuan. She was in Misery and Titanic.
Also the actress who played the TV show Seeker could be moiraine.
Sorry, Rose Leslie. Or maybe shes aviehenda? Sorry, i butchered that spelling.
@251, I want Lucy Lawless, but I actually want her as Siuan, not Elaida. Watch her in Parks and Recreation. She would nail it.
Please do not not use the suggested people for Lanfear. You will have ruined it.
I’m hoping most of the cast is virtual unknowns.
Naturally, Nynaeve will have to be played by a rabid possum until book 9 where she lightens up and becomes a human being.
Moraine is a young Kate Mulgrew. Handsom, not beautiful. Strong, confident, and powerful. Sad that timing didn’t work out.
I absolutely adore fancasting… So I want to say first that I appreciate all the effort and work that must have gone into creating this…
However. I find the white-washed choices incredibly problematic, and simply admitting that you know you did it doesn’t make it any better (in fact, it makes it worse imo).
Arguing that Andor is the “England” equivalent is not accurate because of The Breaking. The whole point of the breaking is that it completely rearranged the world, meaning that races of all people were displaced from where we would typically think to find them and put on the other side of the world. The easiest example is the Aiel. Typically, in our world, native people groups from the dessert have dark skin… But in the Aiel waste we find the whitest group of people (tanned, but essentially pale and either blond or ginger).
Considering that, there is no reason to cast the two rivers folk as white. In fact, they have been explicitly described as having dark hair and dark eyes at many points in the series (which is Rand’s Andoran and Aiel blood make him stand out so much – justified by everyone he grew up with by his mother being an outlander) and at times having olive skin. It doesn’t mean that you can’t cast any of them as white, but at the very least they must have dark hair and eyes if you want to stay loyal to the story. I cannot remember which book or who said it, but I remember one of the Emond’s Field Five thinking something when they met their first fair skinned, blond, blue eyed woman, and it was something along the lines of them being shocked because they have only ever met women with dark eyes. This is very clearly not a white version of England.
I understand that finding actors that are also POC can be difficult… But that should not mean that we don’t use them, but rather that we should actually be putting more time and effort into POC representation because of that reason alone. If we are going to put the effort into creating a fancast this thorough, we should also be willing to put in the extra time that it takes to search out actors who are not only POC but who also fit the descriptions in the story more accurately.
I apologize for such a long comment, but I think that this is an incredibly important conversation and I hope that you are able to not only do some more research into the descriptions in the books but also re-evaluate your choices in light of POC representation.
(And obviously I have to mention the fact that we now have the official casting for our main five and they are all POC except Rand, which has made me incredibly happy)
Since the OP posted this over three years ago, perhaps you should read her post on the latest casting news, rather than ask her to comment on this comment thread?
https://www.tor.com/2019/08/19/leigh-butler-on-the-wheel-of-time-television-casting-news/
Yep–going to second the suggestion @263 and direct people to Leigh’s updated thoughts on casting, here, as the best place to continue the discussion: https://www.tor.com/2019/08/19/leigh-butler-on-the-wheel-of-time-television-casting-news/