For many years, Daniel Radcliffe was at the head of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time as the young wizard Harry Potter, and now the actor has revealed his desire to join Game of Thrones, one of the biggest TV series of all time, and possibly without his head. Here's what Radcliffe had to say about the prospect of joining the Game of Thrones cast for Season 7 or 8.
I would love to. If they want to just bring me in and fucking kill me, I would be so happy to do that.
So, Game of Thrones Season 7 already has the excellent casting of Jim Broadbent going for it, but that's about all we know about the newcomers. (Sadly, the Angela Lansbury rumors were false.) Getting somebody like Daniel Radcliffe involved would probably boost awareness of Season 7 even more, somehow, perhaps bringing in fantasy fans who hadn't gotten into the violent epic yet. I mean, not if he was only in one scene and immediately took a mace to the head, but he doesn't have to die.
I know one is supposed to find the best actor for a part, and not necessarily the other way around, but David Benioff and D.B. Weiss can easily figure out a character to introduce for Radcliffe, who has gone as far as any entertainer ever has in avoiding being typecast for onscreen roles. In the years since Harry Potter came its end, Radcliffe has played Allen Ginsberg, a demon, a farting corpse and, most recently, an undercover agent posing as a white supremacist. I don't know there there are any areas of Westeros that are too extreme for the actor at this point in his career.
And while you'd think that getting Daniel Radcliffe involved would mean he'd be around the show for a long time, that definitely doesn't have to be the case. Season 6 used excellent actors like Max Von Sydow and Ian McShane for extremely limited roles, so getting Radcliffe in for a scene just to kill him off makes as much sense as anything else. How great would it be if the next giant battle had a moment where Radcliffe just appears out of nowhere and gets stabbed in the face or gets his torso blown up. So many people would be like, "Hey, was that..."
While Radcliffe's Harry Potter co-star Rupert Grint will soon be seen in the small screen remake of Snatch, we probably shouldn't expect to see the former boy wizard joining any long-term TV series. (The one he did, A Young Doctor's Notebook, had just four episodes in each of its two seasons.) Here's how he explained that point of view to Digital Spy.
I've recently read a couple of really good TV pilot scripts. But then it's signing on for seven years. . . . Right now, I have a little bit of freedom. So if I read a script for something that's filming next year, I don't have to turn it down because I'm not available - which I did, for a long time.
It's totally understandable that Radcliffe doesn't want to once again get locked into a career path that doesn't allow him any flexibility. So while we could possibly see him joining a limited series like The Night Manager or something along those lines, but he'll probably just stick to feature films, because the universe sometimes isn't fair. Another cameo on BoJack Horseman would also be accepted. But seriously, someone needs to get him decapitated on Game of Thrones, and I should get to keep the fake head.
Game of Thrones will eventually return to HBO at some point after our world's winter has already come and gone, with Season 7 set to debut at some point in Summer 2017, months after its normal release window. To see when everything will show up before that winter starts, check out our fall premiere schedule.
