‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 7 Casts ‘Harry Potter’ Star Jim Broadbent In ‘Significant’ Role
Jim Broadbent is set to make a leap into another world of fantasy, only in ye olden times this time around, as the "Harry Potter" star has been announced to have been cast in a major role for the penultimate season of HBO's hit live action adaptation series of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire," "Game of Thrones."
Entertainment Weekly reported that the ensemble cast of HBO's political fantasy drama "Game of Thrones" is about to get even bigger and more star-studded for its next seventh season, with Jim Broadbent announced to join the show's cast.
The specific details of the role the Oscar Winner will be playing were not revealed by the show's producers, with reports only indicating that Broadbent will be playing a "significant" role in the series. This is understandable due to the current state of the adaptation; owing to the show's nature that hinges on intrigue and major twists, casting any major name as an addition to the cast is sure to at least suggest that some great big thing will be coming during the upcoming season.
An example of a major star previously joining the "Game of Thrones" cast is Ian McShane who signed on for a brief appearance in the last season. It turned out that McShane's character was none other than fan-favorite The Hound, who fans believed was dead, and his reintroduction marked a massively pivotal point in the show's storyline.
More than the above, "Game of Thrones" has now outpaced its source material. Meaning that the writers effectively have free reign to tell a very different story from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, but also that fans can no longer rely on said book series to speculate about future events in the show.
Back to the actor himself, the mainstream fantasy audience will recognize Broadbent in his recurring appearances in the "Harry Potter" film series as Horace Slughorn. His other films include range in tone from the speculative fiction anthology film "Cloud Atlas," the historical drama "The Iron Lady" based on legendary British stateswoman Margaret Thatcher, and the comedic in the "Hot Fuzz" installment of Edgar Wright's "Three Flavors Cornetto" trilogy.
For the television, "Game of Thrones" will not be Broadbent's first stint in the small screen acting business; he most recently featured as Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky on the six-part BBC television event series "War & Peace," an adaptation of the classic Leo Tolstoy novel. Broadbent also starred as the title character in the television film "Longford," for which he was nominated for multiple awards and won a Golden Globe.
Set to have fewer episodes than its predecessors, season 7 of "Game of Thrones" will return sometime next year.