The Wheel of Time TV Show Cast Revealed: Rand, Perrin, Mat, and More

Perrin with a spoiler LOL

Unknown actors is good.

But Tiger Madden is so unknown even Google hasn’t heard of her. Or IMDB.

@12 – He’s telling people his family dies. That happens in book 4. That’s quite a long spoiler.

That’s a lot of diversity in the gene pool of a remote, isolated region.

@15: Hey, look at you, clarifying a spoiler that was intentionally left vague because it’s—you know—a spoiler. What if someone here is just getting to the end of book three and is just innocently looking at this to see the TV characters? @7’s tease was fine, and @12’s response was completely unnecessary, but you? You need to go sit in the dark and examine your life, bud.

@20 Unless I misremember, that’s a quote from A Memory of Light. 

@20 That’s actually a speech from Rand in the final book.

I have a suspicion this will be as bad as The Shannara Chronicles. Please dear God don’t be as bad as The Shannara Chronicles.

Wow, casting by MTV. This looks like Shanarra Chronicles 2.0. And Zoe was even in that Trainwreck, too! 

@43 I feel like Lanfear was always cheating and I question whether she was really ever that beautiful.

The Nynaeve actress is gorgeous! 

while i havent heard of any of these actors, I dont think its right to doomsay. Harriet and team jordan will be on top of this to make sure its a good adaptation. Also, i am rather confused at everyone saying that they are too good looking to be the characters. Every single one of them in the book is stated to be good looking, even mat. In book two theres a section where Leane is admiring both rand and perrin on their looks. Even mat gets several glances by girls throughout the series. Nynaneve and egwene are stated to be very pretty young women. 

@53 Curious why you say even Mat (twice) with regards to looks.  From reading the books I always got the impression he was the best looking of the three.

@63 mostly because there are scenes in the book when mat and rand are together and most girls seem more attrached to rand. Than again these are the scenes when hes being affected by the dagger, so that makes sense. More that the narrative seemed to be pushing rand as more attractive.

Love that they went with relative unknowns but…other then Mat, I’m kind of hating their choices. Not matching up with book descriptions aside, none of these headshots communicates what I feel to be the essence of their character. Others have mentioned the MTV feel of these choices, and I’ll just leave it that I concur.

The physical appearance of the actors is the literal least important part of adapting any written work. People that are looking at casting head shots or skin colour and deciding the series is ruined are just insane.

For me, this all looks pretty good to me.  Hopefully the relative unknowns prove to be good actors and are given good material as well.  Regardless, it’s exciting to see. 

Love the books i tell everyone i know about them like some other comments on here i just home they stay true to the books

The actor playing Perrin needs to bulk up. He doesnt look like a blacksmith’s apprentice. 

It’s almost as if the the people doing the casting have never even read the description of the characters. 

So a few things- anyone saying that they need to go back and read the character descriptions, you might want to go back and check it yourself. Skin tone is mentioned in passing, but narratively doesn’t matter. Only three things matter:

1- Rand is an outlander (him being redhead is enough)

2- Rand is recognized as Aiel

3- Characters are true to their personalities

I for one, am thrilled with the casting of the Planeteers. I can’t wait to see who they cast as Captain Planet.

@99- Firstly, it doesn’t have any implications as to anything.

Secondly- the Aiel are described as Pale redheads lol 

Read comment 96

 Nynaeve had one long braid! 

I agree with the other comments that the diversity displayed in the casting is certainly NOT a reflection of a long-isolated corner of a continent. So we will not get a spot on depiction of the book. HOWEVER, I love the diversity displayed in the casting. I think it will make for wonderful watching. Can’t wait. 

With make-up it will be easy enough to give Rand red hair; that will differentiate him from the other Two Rivers folks who are dark, as described by Morgase when she meets Rand. I’m getting excited, too. Man, maybe 10% of what Jordan wrote could even possibly be included in this, and that doesn’t account for whatever changes are made.

1. I find it amusing how many people missed that the Aiel are basically Irish in coloring.

2. Even more amusing how many people missed that Gaul, Bain or Chiad comment to Perrin at one point that they’d never seen black eyes until they came to the Wetlands. Also that EVERYONE in Emond’s Field has dark eyes (in contrast with Rand.)

3. Re Mat being a little too white to match – Keep in mind a lot can be done with make-up & wigs. Darken him a bit and he will just appear to be on one end of a spectrum.

4. I have no mind’s eye so I have no experience of imagining what a character looks like from a book description. I think the problem might be from the cover art – both the old and new version – did not really make Rand look different from the people of his village. Except for red hair. But that’s not in keeping with the constant confusion he causes having an Andoran accent with Aiel coloring.  

5.  There are multiple comments that the Andoran royal line looks almost Aiel. This is often referenced in presumed contrast with the look of their subjects. Morgase & Elayne are blondes with light skin. 

@123 – “3. Re Mat being a little too white to match – Keep in mind a lot can be done with make-up & wigs. Darken him a bit and he will just appear to be on one end of a spectrum.”

Whoa, wait, what??? Are you suggesting blackface? Seriously? 

Interesting casting choice. Not complaining, as I just have to remind myself that the first and primary reason for making this (or any mass market) show is to make money. In order to do that, people need to watch the show, therefore every race and sexual orientation will need to be present in the main cast of characters. That just makes good business sense. Makes me wonder which of the main cast will be LGBTQ+. Maybe Mat? Or will they save that for Berelain?

Again, not complaining or trolling. The showrunners for GoT upped the sexuality, diversity, etc… my thoughts and comments are honest, as I do think that these show runners will follow suit with what GoT did. My only dispute with this cast is I would want a stockier Perrin.

@128 I wasn’t suggesting blackface. I was more thinking more of contouring so that he would’t be quite so distinct from his fellow villagers. 

You can do amazing things with it. Check out https://www.youtube.com/user/gossmakeupartist

Sorry, I see where “darken him a bit” would =  “blackface”. It wasn’t what I was thinking but sometimes we don’t choose the right words to express the thoughts in our heads.

SOrry never pictured Perrin as a black guy when I read the books

As I expected coming into this article, I find myself fairly neutral about these choices.  Honestly knowing who they cast practically tells us nothing about the quality of the producing.  That will all depend on acting skill, writing talent, and directing choices.  Visually, I’m fairly satisfied with the actors chosen.  They’re young, and would have to be if they wanted to stay faithful.

Despite many complaints to contrary, I think they look pretty reasonable for their individual roles.  Perrin may not look like a Blacksmith’s apprentice in that headshot, but he does look substantially bulkier than the rest of the cast, so it’s in the right direction.  At the end of the day though, options when casting leads are limited, and I would take someone who can be Egwene al’Vere over someone who looks like Egwene al’Vere every time.

A quick note in response to the diversity question though, I do feel like a few of the complaints here have some merit, but let me back that up quickly.  (Spoilers): Manetheren was destroyed in 1200 AB and the Two Rivers region almost immediately sunk into obscurity, almost any genetic diversity that would have been there needed to be there at that point (very little would be added from then to the start of the show).  That means that 2,253 years have past since any diversity has been meaningfully injected into the Two Rivers.  Assuming a age of maturity of approx. 23 years (this is generous, given what we see in tEofW, it’s probably closer to 20), that is 98 generations…. In a population of under 1000 (based on the descriptions of Emond’s Field, Deven Ride, Watch Hill, and Taren Ferry).  Managing to maintaining a population of 4 distinct ethnic groups (as we see in this cast) in those conditions…. stretches credulity a bit.

Now, I’m not saying this somehow kills the show, in fact, I personally couldn’t care less, but it’s important to acknowledge  – at least – that this is a pretty unlikely set of people to live in a rural town in the middle of nowhere, even given the Breaking.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that if they had tried to cast a completely heterogeneous group for the main cast, it would be shooting themselves in the foot; making it harder to find actual good talent.  Though I suppose it remains to be seen if they managed that.  Let’s all hope they have!

I have mixed feelings. I loved this series, but I loved the Shannara series, as well. MTV butchered that. Even though the series didn’t last, producers of today won’t learn from it. It’s too early to judge based simply on the cast. The question is, have the producers and directors read the books? This show won’t make it if they chase the RJ fans right away. That will only leave viewers unfamiliar with the books and Amazon is a streaming service. I guess time will tell. Will wait for the previews. Best of luck, everyone.

I don’t think these characters make much sense to fans of the book and though the show might turn out good still, it’s got to be a concern starting out changing characteristics of major characters, based on poorly done recent screen adaptations of successful stories written decades ago.

Robert Jordan’s own notes show he visualized Egwene as Audrey Hepburn, Perrin as Val Kilmer, Nynaeve as Jacqueline Bisset. The TV series cast don’t resemble what Jordan was trying to convey. Just look at the original covers of the books even. These books were written a fair number of years ago and I don’t think younger readers understand what descriptions meant to people back then. For instance tall dark and handsome was used to denote a tall white guy with brown or black hair, it’s used in tons of older movies and shows.

If the storyline is kept close to Jordan’s it still should be good even if the characters are reinvisioned a little. But I can understand why so many fans are concerned about how far the story will be changed.

Interesting choices.

Perrin was always going to be a difficult casting decision based on looks alone, given the age requirement. I’m happy to wait and see what the actor brings to the role. All the actors.

With respect to height, as long as Rand is distinctively tall, it shouldn’t really matter if Perrin as cast, is taller.

i will also be interested to see what they make of the setup regarding Rand’s looks in contrast to his speech. For mine, as long as that is conveyed successfully, having a diverse looking remaining Cast of Heroes isn’t a barrier to success. The easiest way to do it would be to clearly restrict Aiel looks as being condidered extremely rarewest of the Dragonwall, so that both Rand & those cast in the Andoran Royal Family fulfil their intrinsic requirements to the plot.

The rest of the Nations outside the Borderlands don’t really need pigeonholing on looks alone, given how distinctive their speech & costuming are. I’m very curious to see how accents are replicated in the show.

So in conclusion, I don’t see anything to get too upset about. Just curious to see what they make of it.

for those concerned about the headshots and how everyone looks compared to their mental image, look up Emilia Clarke from 2010. Now imagine seeing one of her headshots and being told she was cast as Daenerys. 

Who knows how they are going to look once costuming and makeup are done. 

Personally, I am FAR more concerned about the writing and directing than I am about some headshots that were taken to make the actors look distinctive and attractive to producers. 

Absolutely horribly totally completely and outrageously disappointed in all of these. This is the worst casting that I have ever seen for anything ever.  Matt is the only one that even remotely closely even a little bit resembles any of the descriptions in the books. Done.

The Two Rivers – a very small isolated community cut off from the world for some 2,000 years.  Where Rand Al’Thor can slip by basically without comment due to his farmers tan, and only be notably “odd” looking because of his hair and eye color, and height.  This casting is ridiculous.  This is a racially homogeneous area.  There are plenty of other races in Randland, but not in Emonds field.  Where an Aiel boy, can basically pass with everyone believing he could be from that area.  Including himself.  As it stands with this casting, Moraine ought to be able to ride into the village and instantly be like –> “Hey you, tall white guy.   You MUST be the one i’m looking for.”  

@159 – Moiraine has no idea what the Dragon Reborn looks like or what his parents looked like. All she knows is that he was reborn. Otherwise, she would have known he would be Aiel and would have instantly recognized Rand as the one.

The casting may presage what the show will be like. It looks to fall on the dramatic side to me.  I am easy to please. I liked Shannara. Of course it won’t be Jordan. Jordan is unique; Brandon proved that. Everyone sees a little something different in WoT which probably explains its universality. Of course it wouldn’t be my take on it but probably there would be those  who wouldn’t like that just like they didn’t like Shannara.

I think we would be served best by having a mostly unknown cast.  I have to think there might be a fair amount of “narrating” in the show.  It is such an overwhelming project.  Today’s movie technology will make things like the “slyph” very realistic.  Also, who can they find to be Aviendha?  I think I’m going to have to re-read the books, it’s been so long.  Nonetheless, I’m so excited for this project.

Everyone except Marcus fits well enough, though the guys could all be a little taller. Marcus is to small/skinny to be Perrin. A mountain of a man whose always careful with his movements as to not hurt anyone. A natural built blacksmith. That’s all a big part of Perrin. A pretty boy actor like Marcus just doesn’t fit. Truth is I can’t think of anyone with both the size and youth. They need to go outside the box and discover a new talent for Perrin’s role. 

Fantastic choices. I saw Perrin and Mat and thought: yes! Can’t wait to see who they cast as Lan and Moiraine. This has been such a long time coming…

The casting of Mat is about as close as I had in my mind myself. All the others were way off in my mind , having said that it doesn’t mean I am disappointed. My opinions on how they looked were formed from covers from the various books and RJ description, which could go on forever. RJ was a clever one, such as describing the Aiel…. They were dessert dwellers, so naturally they were darker complected….but no light skinned . So in a way it does make sense. 

not good casting. Started w Rosamund Pike. Moraine was described as diminutive but with a presence despite her lack of height. I see the casting as contrary to the general image of the books. Sorry , do not see this working.

“I am amazed so many people accepted the covers as a true depiction of the characters.”

Not the covers, but the narrative is what I am referring to. Rosamund Pike actual height is listed at 5’9″ .  Her  lack of height as written in the narrative is in a large part what establishes the power of her character. Point I am making is that if there is too much variation from the narrative, which the success of this program has to depend on, then you risk losing interest from the core group of support, ie, the fan base. In reading many of these reviews, I see just that happening. I think Ms. Pike would be a tremendous asset as Amys for example, or even Lanfear (though I would expect some to compare her looks with other cast members and dispute this, but IMO she has a certain appearance that could easily change from stately beautiful to evilly beautiful, if you catch my meaning), but I think she is miscast in her assigned role.

the cast has definitely surprised me in such a good way. I think i can really see the characters in them… like ive reas the series twice now and after reviewing their interviews and movie clips…i see snippets of something that can work. The actors need to be able to command the beginning character and story arc to the end in which all main characters are different. Tht is mainly why i think these actors could be convincing…so excited!