Realizing that they still had a big, Jim Broadbent-shaped hole in the game of “Older British Character Actor Bingo” they’ve been playing for the last five years, the producers of HBO’s Game Of Thrones have announced that the Harry Potter and Hot Fuzz star will be joining the series for its seventh season, in a mysterious but “significant” role.
Honestly, Game Of Thrones is so far ahead of George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire at this point that we have no real idea who Broadbent might be playing. (The vague casting descriptions the show allows to leak onto the internet don’t offer much help.) Still, it wouldn’t be a Game Of Thrones casting story without some baseless speculation, so let’s see what we can do:
The obvious answer is the 60-ish “Priest” from those earlier casting notices, whose character description—“A venerable priest with moral authority and gravitas. The show is seeking a white actor, using an RP accent, with characterful face for this part”—could basically have come from Broadbent’s Wikipedia page. (The only downside is that the role is only supposed to film for a week, which seems like a bit of a waste.)
But why stop there? The show will presumably be spending some time at the Citadel next season—or else why, for the love of The Seven, have we spent so much time on Sam getting there?—and we can just imagine Broadbent as a fussy maester, making life hard for everyone within reach. Or maybe he’ll go way against type, and play a slavering berserker or a nubile concubine. Jim Broadbent’s a talented, versatile actor, is our point. There’s no reason to pigeonhole him just yet.