‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Casts ‘Poldark’ Actor Josh Whitehouse as Lead Character

HBO has officially cast Poldark actor Josh Whitehouse in the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series.

According to Deadline, Whitehouse’s role will be the lead as-yet-unnamed character on the fantasy series.

In addition to Whitehouse, it was previously announced that actress Naomi Watts has also been cast in the series.

While details of the new series are being kept under wraps, Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin recently stated that the new series would be titled The Long Night, thought that does not appear to have been confirmed as the official title by HBO or producers of the series.

Whitehouse is currently most recognizable from his role as Hugh Armitage in the BBC One series Poldark, but will soon be seen in a musical remake of the ’80s classic Valley Girl. He’ll be playing Randy, the role originated by Nic Cage.

Around the same time that it was announced that Game of Thrones would be ending with season eight, there were also reports that HBO was planning to do multiple spin-off series.

In a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, HBO chief Casey Bloys spoke about the many possible spinoff series, explaining that with the success of Game of Thrones, they would be crazy not to continue the franchise.

“I consider us incredibly fortunate to have a show that this many people have such interest in and that is such a good show. Truly I think it will go down as one of the best shows in the history of television,” he said. “It would be insane for a network not to at least entertain the idea of a successor shows — I was going to say “prequel” but they’re not spin-offs because there are no existing characters going off the flagship. It’s not Laverne & Shirley from Happy Days; they are prequels. But it would be insane — with a universe like George has created that is so vast and has so many characters and so many timelines — to not, at least, entertain the idea, which is what we’re doing.”

“This franchise is really rich and very exciting. It is going to be really, really hard for anybody to match the level that this show has set in terms of quality and filmmaking. So the idea was, if we’re going to try it, let’s take a couple of shots and see,” Bloys continued. “My hope is at least one lives up to the level of quality Benioff and Weiss have set. But again, it’s also very early in the process. I haven’t even seen an outline for them. The priority here is obviously season seven and then season eight. You’re not going to see a situation where we’re launching a prequel on the back of the final season. The final season is going to be its own event.”

“It’s going to be a big deal for us and the fans. I’m not interested in using it to launch any other show. We mentioned the spin-offs because obviously there’s a lot of interest in them, but it’s a very embryonic process, and you know how development goes — it can be a long process,” he added. “We confirmed their existence because there was a lot of interest, but it’s not something that we are fast-tracking to get done to air immediately after the final season. I’m guessing fans will need some time to decompress from how amazing the final season is.”

Game of Thrones will return in 2019, but the first spinoff does not appear to have a premiere date at this time.