Australian actress Essie Davis, who starred in last year’s domestic horror sensation The Babadook, has signed on for a small role on the sixth season of HBO’s Game Of Thrones. Davis will portray a member of a Braavosi acting troupe performing The Bloody Hand, a play satirizing the death of King Robert Baratheon. The play, in which Davis’ character will embody an even-more-debauched version of Lena Headey’s Queen Cersei, was featured in “Mercy,” one of the preview chapters for the possibly forthcoming The Winds Of Winter.
Besides The Babadook, which earned Davis strong reviews for her performance as a widowed mother struggling to protect her child from malevolent forces, the actress is probably most recognizable from her role as Maggie, the medic who examines Neo’s comatose body in the later Matrix films. (She also starred in the original Australian version of The Slap.)
HBO has been releasing a steady stream of casting notices for the upcoming sixth season, which is expected to air in spring of 2016. Besides Davis, Pilou Asbæk has been cast as vicious pirate Euron Greyjoy, Freddie Stroma as the beautifully named Dickon Tarly, and Max Von Sydow as the mystically inclined three-eyed raven. Richard E. Grant and Ian McShane have also both been hired on, for unnamed but potentially impact-heavy roles.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]