Naomi Watts to Play a Socialite with a Dark Secret in Game of Thrones Prequel Series…

HBO’s untitled Game of Thrones prequel series from Jane Goldman and George R.R. Martin has found its first lead: Naomi Watts has signed on to play a character described only as “a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret,” Variety reports. The news comes after the pilot, one of originally five in contention at HBO, was greenlit in July.

It would seem that Watts’ socialite will lead a larger ensemble of characters, based on what HBO president of programming Casey Bloys told Deadline in July: “There are very strong female characters but it’s an ensemble, there is men and women. Jane is a very good writer, we don’t want to limit her to writing female leads. There are a lot of very complicated leads in [the pilot].” Seeing as the series seems to cover the Long Night in some form (judging from Martin’s suggestion of that as a title), perhaps the pilot will establish an ensemble of characters each touched by this horrific winter in a different way.

If this is true, I think it’s a great move by HBO. Watts is a powerhouse dramatic actor who can steal a scene, like in this sequence from 21 Grams, where she plays a former addict who suddenly loses her husband and children in a car accident.

I also think Watts is a good choice if HBO wants to get a big-name actor without looking it’s engaging in stunt casting. Watts has a lot of credits to her name, including roles in movies like Mulholland Drive, The Ring, King Kong, Birdman and many more, but she’s always been a character actor first and foremost.

And as an English-born performer, she’ll be able to pull off the accent required of all denizens of Westeros.

At any rate, what we do have to go on is the official logline from HBO:

Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East, to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.

The pilot is expected to go into production in early 2019, perhaps as early as January.

In the meantime, Game of Thrones will return for its eighth and final season in early 2019.