The Wheel of Time family is getting bigger every day! This week, WOTonPrime has uncovered the lovely faces of the Tuatha’an frustrated teenager Aram and his grandparents, Raen and Illa.
(Note: The comments section for this piece will most likely contain spoilers for the Wheel of Time series.)
Way back in November, Variety reported that Peaky Blinders star Daryl McCormack had been cast in an undisclosed role. Now, it’s official: he’ll be playing the role of Aram. According to the show’s Twitter account, he’ll be joined by Maria Doyle Kennedy (whom you might recognize from Orphan Black, Outlander, and plenty of other genre hits) as Illa and Narinder Samra (next seen in Netflix’s forthcoming adaptation of Shadow and Bone) as Raen.
Please welcome the Tuatha'an, our newest cast members to the #WOTonPrime family:
Maria Doyle Kennedy @mariadkennedy as Illa
Narinder Samra @kalaiedoscopes as Raen
Daryl McCormack @DarylMcCormack as Aram pic.twitter.com/Liovbt42R9— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) July 22, 2020
Here are all the casting reveals so far:
- Moiraine and Lan
- Nynaeve, Egwene, Rand, Mat, and Perrin
- Thom Merrilin, Loial, Padan Fain, Logain
- Alanna Mosvani and her two warders, Ihvon and Maksim
- Tam al’Thor
- Leane Sharif
- Liandrin Guirale
- Kerene Nagashi
- Egwene’s parents, Mat’s parents, amd more!
- Eamon and Geofram
- Gill the Inkeeper
We have no word on how the production delay will effect the show’s release date, but we’ll give you the updates as they come!
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I’m so disappointed that Maria Doyle Kennedy is playing Illa. Would have loved to see her as an important Aes Sedai, rather than in such a small role.
Same – I was dying to see her as Elaida go head to head with Rosamund Pike and whoever is playing Siuan. But I’ll take whatever we can get. This could represent a strength of the show vis a vis the books – strong actors can really hit the emotional and character beats and add to the richness of the story.
Nice :) I apparently don’t watch enough TV since I haven’t heard of any of the people being cast so far (with the exception of the guy playing Tam), but that can be a good thing.
I havent seen any of them in anything, but that goes along with all the main cast but Moiraine, and Lan, and Tam( going from playing the worst, most dishonorable dad, to the best dad ever)
Kennedy played in a bunch of genre shows, and she’s really talented. My favorite role of her’s was likely in Orphan Black, where she was the main character’s adopted mother. And tough as nails. But she’s a professional singer, so they’ve probably cast her in this role for that purpose. For the firelight party scene.
Also, IMDb has her listed in the episode The Flame of Tar Valon, which is episode 6, I believe? If that’s accurate… that is a MUCH slower pace than any I’ve seen yet, since the Tinkers precede the Whitecloak attack.
AP @5 – yes! Loved her in Orphan Black (which is a top 10 show for me of all time. Note to all – Tatiana Maslany’s performances are the best I’ve seen in any show, ever. Do yourselves a favor and dive into this semi-obscure Canadian BBC show).
@3 it happens all the time. What about Game of Thrones? In season 1 out of 19 person main cast , there was only one a famous actor, I vaguely knew 6 more from prior works where they played minor character. Of them 3 died in first season, and 2 more by season 4. The rest were complete unknowns to me. Now they are all famous.
@8 – yes, that is the secret of success of these multi-season genre shows. Pick a few more famous ones and then do a good job casting new talent. I think about Pedro Pascal from GOT, the fan favorite Prince of Dorne. Tons of grousing over the casting of this relative nobody for this critical role when many famous actors were fancast in the GoT websites. Then Pascal killed the role on the screen and now is a well known actor contributing to the success of many TV and movie ventures.
I’m really excited with the cast choices I am seeing.
RobMRobM @7: Absolutely agree. The most amazing thing to me was that during “clone swaps” you could tell which clone was pretending to be the one shown; so if you know the characters, you could distinguish between Alison pretending to be Cosima and Sarah pretending to be Cosima.
And Maria Doyle Kennedy was amazing in that show!
ibid. @9: Exactly. Let’s face it, most TV shows can’t afford to get big-name actors for long stretches. Just one more indicator (among many) about Sean Bean’s eventual fate. :-) And this is often the best use of the big-name actors: in smaller roles that require less time commitment.
@11 to be truthful, unfortunately at that time Sean Bean was typecast as noble man struggling with his conscience and heroically dying in the end (thanks to Lord of the Rings), it was a dead giveaway even for non-readers of GOT.
“No Min and Ishamael make Homer go something-something.”
“Go crazy?”
“DON’T MIND IF I DO!”
(Accidentally posted this on the Halo Infinite article, because I’m a moron. Sorry about that).
I hope they do a good job with makeup: right now, “Raen” and “Ila” look barely old enough to be Aram’s parents, let alone his *grandparents*!