Amazon’s Wheel of Time TV show has announced its latest casting drop, and it’s a big one! We now have our Thom Merrilin, Loial, Padan Fain, and Logain, Variety reports.
The break-down is as follows. Come for the news, stay for showrunner Rafe Judkins’ notes on their auditions! (And sly revelation of the very first scene in the show!)
Logain: Alvaro Morte
I am in love with @AlvaroMorte I cried real human tears in my office when I watched his performance of his first scene. He’s gonna break you. https://t.co/OFuj7EnSot
— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) December 4, 2019
Loial: Hammed Animashaun
Loial’s always been a character I was excited/terrified about because of how perfect the actor has to be to pull off what’s required. Hammed is so good that when his first audition came through, every single producer on the show e-mailed back within 5 minutes that he was the one https://t.co/MLDTRUceT2
— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) December 4, 2019
Thom Merrilin: Alexandre Willaume
Ye of little faith :) Sometimes it takes a minute to find someone who’s absolutely perfect to play a character as important as Thom. I was actually in an old Inn with him this afternoon to witness a gleeman performance and let me tell you he is something special. https://t.co/rHYbOxZsm6
— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) December 4, 2019
Padan Fain: Johann Meyers
Johann! He was actually the very first shot of the show, riding his cart into the Two Rivers. And the way he stepped off that cart and took in the town will make you smile and shiver simultaneously in the way only Padan Fain can. https://t.co/geEie24r7f
— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) December 4, 2019
The news comes less than a month after the last batch of casting announcements, which included Michael McElhatton (aka Roose Bolton on Game of Thrones) as Tam Al’Thor and Peaky Blinders star Daryl McCormack in an undisclosed role (we previously had him pegged for either Fain or Ba’alzamon, so it looks like Ba’alzamon it is).
The official inclusion of Thom Merrilin and Loial into the television adaptation is big news for Wheel of Time readers, as it was feasible that either character could be excised in the interest of slimming down the cast. (There was certainly thematic precedent, considering how Tom Bombadil the bard fared in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.)
A handful of important roles remain unrevealed: Elayne Trakand, her brother Gawyn, her half-brother Galad, her mother the Queen Morgase, and their “advisor” Elaida Sedai, along with a collection of Whitecloaks, Forsaken, and most intriguingly, Min.
Previously announced cast-members include Josh Stradowski as Rand, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin, Barney Harris as Mat, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve, Madeleine Madden as Egwene, Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, and Daniel Henney as al’Lan Mandragoran.
They all seem great for their roles, but it’s odd to have Logain here with 3 main characters, he shouldn’t even have a speaking role until book 4.
@1:
One of the first things Rafe ever said about the show was he wanted to expand Logain’s importance early on.
I’ve never heard of any of them, but very excited at any rate :)
@Main Article Comparing Thom and Loial to Tom Bombadil is underselling their importance to the story. I’d compare Tom Bombadil more to the Green Man, if anyone.
@1 and 2 Giving Logain a more prominent role in the first season allows for some nice magical battle action early on.
@1 Rafe said that Logain would have a larger role which I think makes sense given the viewing about him having a great destiny that kind of wasn’t
Mr. Rune @5. To be fair, I think Min’s viewing of Logain have a great destiny in the future after he was stilled was of his role in the Black Tower post Last Battle.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewHB
@5:
He was going to have “glory” and some sort of crown. Pretty sure most of this is regarding being the leader of the Black Tower after the Last Battle.
@@.-@ – To be honest, you could cut Thom and Loial and not really lose anything from the overall story. Those two are more witnesses to events than anything.
@8 Thom isn’t important to the story? He killed Galldrian, and saved Rand and Mat at White Bridge, and saved Rand at the Last Battle.
You could replace those actions with someone else, but just removing him from the story makes it end much earlier.
@@@@@ 8. You could cut a majority of the characters. I would counter that cutting Loial and/or Thom would be akin to not adding garlic, onion, salt, or pepper when cooking. Can you remove the ingredients and call it a meal? Yes. Would you want to if you didn’t have to? No.
They are not central, but they need to be there.
@10: Nice analogy!
Nobody seems to be complaining about these actors looks. Poor Animashaun is going to be buried under prosthetics of course, and Willaume has to grow a mustache but other than that they look fine. Has anybody warned Meyers how totally sickening his character is?
@12. Playing Padan Fain gives you a great excuse to chew the scenery.
Tom Bombadil isn’t a character in LOTR so much as a scene. He never shows up outside of that scene, and the scene can be cut with virtually no impact on the rest of the story. Loial and Thom Merrilin show up in many of the stories throughout the series. If necessary, you could cut them and combine their roles into other characters, but it would be a much larger change than ditching Tom Bombadil.
@13 robertstadler
Without Tom Bombadil, the witch-king kills Eowyn. Just sayin’.
Also, the Bombadil chapters add whimsical mystery and are lovely.
That whimsy is why I love the Bombadil chapters :)
As to these casting announcements…no real complaints except the actor playing Logain isn’t quite as pretty as I would have expected. (Maybe that’s just my own mental image!)
Happy for more casting news, and that the cast continues to expand in a diverse way. Also, the fan response to the diverse casting choices doesn’t seem to be as… disappointing as it was when we were initially exposed to our superkids, so I appreciate that as well.
I am glad that Thom and Loial are included in the show; it’s hard to imagine Wheel of Time without Thom’s relationships with Rand, Mat and Elayne (or Moiraine, I guess) or Loial exposing our heroes to the Ways or the Stedding.
Of course we need Loial, he tells the story in his book (and Thom probably adds his own High Chant version).
@12/16 hasn’t that ship (ethnicity) already sailed as far as casting choices go?
My only “complaint” if you want to call it that is the actor they cast for Thom doesn’t look nearly old enough. Part of that may that I’m 35 and I refuse to believe an actor that is 47 should be cast as an “old” man. lol. I’m sure he’ll be great. also, he kinda looks like a slightly less polished Michael Fassbender. Should help that weird “Elayne crushes on Thom” side plot have a little more believably should they choose to include it.
@19 – Thom is probably younger than most readers picture him. He’s young enough that he was Morgase’s lover when Elayne was a toddler, and Morgase is in her early 40s during the events of the books. We just picture him as old because that’s how the boys think of him.
I’ve thought all along that they will need to trim down the roster of Forsaken a bit, and one way to do that is to merge Logain and Asmodean to some extent.
@21 Do they though? When is the first time they even need to cast a Forsaken that sticks around long term? It’s not like they need to keep all 13 actors/actresses on retainer from episode 1.
These look like great choices. And if there was ever a story that gave full carte blanche to multi-ethnic casting, this is the one and I love that they are running with it.
@12 Padan Fain is the kind of role that makes careers.
@19 Remember Thom is “old” compared to the teenagers.
@20 – Thom is white-haired. It’s not just the boys’ impression.
I’ve seen white haired people in their 40s. Also bald people. People age differently.
@20, 23 – I’m mostly just struggling with the impending doom of middle age! In my head I still want Thom to be 65 to 70+ for some reason. I’ve already begun the process of identifying more with some of the older characters in WoT on subsequent read-throughs. Whereas on my earliest few it was really easy to step into the heads of the SuperBoys (or Girls) and now I find myself wanting to smack them a little more and tell them to listen to their elders. Eventually I’ll be telling Trollocs to get off my lawn and complaining with Cenn Buie about how the kids just don’t listen or behave with any respect.
@22 Obviously Ishamael’s pretty constant throughout the first 3 books, then Lanfear in 2 – 5, but other than that, I don’t think there are ever more than a few of them active at a time, and once they start coming back, they’d probably be recast anyway.
@27:
I really, really hope they drop the “forsaken are pac-man ghosts” storyline.
Having dead Forsaken come back is the perfect excuse for recasting. But they will have a problem if they have to recast one of the good people, because that should only happen for Darkfriends.
Lanfear is wearing a disguise in book 2 and isn’t in 3 except for a brief dream scene where Perrin sees her for a second. (There are a few other male forsaken seen in the wolf dream at this point but I think they could get away without showing them all) She then does away with the disguise immediately in 4 so she can be recast then. I suspect 4 &5 will be combined into 1 season. And then she would be recast again when next seen. Now that I think about it, Moghedgien makes the early important appearance (book 4) and then manages to stay alive in her original body all the way through.
i also think they would want to skip the scene where the first two forsaken get their new bodies, as this is a visual medium and they might not want to reveal who they both are in the story right away
Man, the more I see of this, the more I realize that they must be reading a different series from me. Most of the actors don’t really look anything like I imagined the characters. Thom Merillin should be a skinny old guy; this actor looks like he’d be at home in the NFL. Given these four actors, I’d have put him as Logain; the Logain guy as Thom (with appropriately aged makeup). The other two I can live with; Loial would be hard to cast, I think, and so whatever they can do will be good as long as they try. And the other guy has a bit of the wasting look that I imagined for Fain.
With all that said, I’m still gonna watch it. The story should be great, regardless of the casting.
As long as they can act, all will be well. Legend of the Seeker was a nightmare because the main actor was poorly cast (too short, too scrawny, too young, wrong eye color), had horrible screen presence, was far overshadowed by the superior acting talent around him, and was just hard to watch without constantly breaking you out of the moment. Conversely, although somewhat poorly cast in a physical sense, Bruce Spence being 6’6″ doesn’t come across as a spindly old wizard, but he was more than able to ACT the part in line with the character we read in the book, and that is what matters the most. The utter butchery of the story line in order to create an episodic format that didn’t require chronological viewing sequence was more brutal. Here is hoping that those mistakes, poor actors and story butchery, are avoided here.
I wonder if any of the travelling circus stuff will make the story. And whoever gets to play Tuon is getting a plum role.
I think the main issue I’m going to have with all of those cast is the voices – I’ve been listening to the books nearly as long as I have been reading them, and the characters’ voices are pretty set in my mind. Loial especially – I’ve not been able to clearly visualize him, but that voice -! (I don’t know if there are other narrators, but I have been listening to Kate Reading and Michael Kramer) Second issue is Roose Bolton = Tam Al’Thor. That one took some suspension of disbelief. :-)
@20 Thom could still have been significantly older than Morgase at that point. Even if he was only 40 or so to her early 30s, he’d be at least 50 in the main story. He’s got to be spry enough for the juggling and other gleeman tricks, but with the white hair I envisioned him well into his 50s. I agree that 47 looks a bit young for him. I hope they age him a bit with makeup, and if he can’t grow a long enough mustache, they’d better add that too. That’s a distinguishing feature, often mentioned in the text.
@34 – I tend not to get too hung up on how I think a character should sound in my head vs how they are represented by an actor so that isn’t too much of an issue for me. That said, I have this deep rooted tendency to hear Sir Christopher Lee any time I read Thom’s lines. That guy had the exact voice to be able to tell his stories in Common, Plain, and High Chant.
@33, like many fans I think I could survive the excision of the travelling circus
@35, Moiraine was born in 956 making her forty two in 998. Thom is probably less than ten years her senior.
My only question, will this series ever actually take us to the Last Battle? Or just dither about like most series tend to do these days..
Did anyone else notice on Madeleine Madden’s insta stories there were two pretty blonde girls, along with her and Zoe, making biscuits. Then it was removed. I’m pretty sure they’ve cast our Elayne at least….
You can always cast an earlier version of forsaken before the breaking of the world in disguise to eliminate any future need to recast that character. Also disguise them when they are hiding themselves in plain sight somehow to make the audience unaware. I noticed in Shadow Rising at end of book four, I had an inkling of who the Forsaken might be but had no idea how it would turn out.