5 Hilarious Early Roles of 'Game of Thrones' Actors
For those of us fully immersed in Westeros and the lives of all its inhabitants, it's easy to forget that Game of Thrones' cast members aren't actually the badass men and women they play on TV. Well, it's easier to forget with some actors than others.
"He's just an actor playing a role. He's just an actor playing a role. He's jus-"
They're all regular working-class Joes who've put in their time with some forgettable roles. Fortunately, we haven't forgotten them.
Rory McCann: The Hideous Hound Got Half-Naked for Porridge
If you know the show, you know the Hound had to get tortured by his sadistic brother to become a vicious killing machine (albeit a complete sissy about fire). In fact, he appears to take to water much more, er, swimmingly.
In this commercial, two women come across a kilt hanging in a forest near an icy lake. It belongs to the Pre-Hound, who is swimming in the lake like a sexy little polar bear, far too comfortably for a man from the temperate Casterly Rock. As he nears the shore, the women giddily anticipate the sight of some Hound dong, something the show has been egregiously lacking. Instead, they're greeted by this goddamn Adonis:
"'sup?"
He's almost unrecognizable without his disfiguring scars, but if you squint really hard, you start expecting him to snarl menacingly at the little birds. Instead, his face contorts into what scientists have indeed determined is a smug grin, something previously thought impossible for the Hound's face to do. This isn't HBO, so there's no dong to be seen.
"And with how cold this water is, I'm thankful for it."
Then he goes home to eat porridge, which is obviously what this commercial is for.
Poor Davos Seaworth just can't get a break. In Game of Thrones, he loses his fingertips as punishment for years of smuggling; in the 2002 Sci Fi Pictures original movie Dog Soldiers, he loses his humanity to become a werewolf. Wait, what?
The character who got a knighthood based on the size of his balls once played the mangiest, scrawniest, rat-faciest werewolf to ever dare show itself on screen, thanks to special effects apparently funded by Stannis Baratheon's military budget.
"ALL HAIL THE QUEEF OF THE NORTH!"
In an act of incest unheard of even in Westeros, someone actually decided it was a good idea to let this movie's director, B-list horror filmmaker Neil Marshall, direct the episode of Game of Thrones featuring the Battle of Blackwater Bay. He did such an admittedly good job that he was brought on to helm another important battle this season, but that's probably because there were no dire wolves involved.
Amazingly, Liam Cunningham isn't the only Game of Thrones actor whose resume includes a tacky SyFy role ...
Emilia Clarke: The Mother of Dragons Got Chased by Dinosaur Bones in Triassic Attack
Fan favorite Daenerys (Miss Targaryen if you're nasty) wasn't always so skilled with reptiles or native tribesmen, as seen in the delightfully awful SyFy original Triassic Attack. In the movie, all Red Waste breaks loose when a Native American museum employee accidentally uses his Native American superpowers to bring dinosaur bones to life.
"That's how these people work, right?" -screenwriter
It's almost like a vision of some future world if the khaleesi had committed some terrible transgression against dragonkind -- her reincarnated form is chased through forests by winged skeletons that swoop down to get themselves a taste of fire and blood.
Eventually, though, the Mother of Dragons seems to experience some kind of past-life regression, as she magics the creature into submission with a hilarious ceremonial chant.
No word on whether she regrets being unavailable for Sharknado. But not even the khaleesi's cheesy shenanigans can hold a candle (or rather, a buoy) to those of her late husband ...
Jason Momoa: The Brutal Drogo Was a Pretty Boy on Baywatch
Wanna see what the great khal would look like after a dunk in a vat of Nair and a trip to Billabong? No? No one wants that? Well, as the show has taught us, the world is a cruel and unjust place.
He looks like his own porn parody.
Check out that Taylor Lautner-lookin' motherfucker. Now look away, lest you suffer the Dothraki version of what Noah did to Ham. The future Conan the Barbarian says his career was nearly ruined by his run on Baywatch, claiming that he couldn't get an agent for years afterward because of the bad reputation of the show's talent. He spent those years training, traveling, and struggling to get whatever parts he could until he was finally cast as the dreadlocked alien Ronon Dex on Stargate: Atlantis. His star (or should we say comet?) took off shortly thereafter, but he says he's still "constantly fighting that stigma."
So our Sun and Stars would probably be pretty pissed about us showing you all this video of his Hawaiian-shirted character serenading his fellow lifeguards with only the finest in late '90s overproduced slow jams, right?
As long as we stay out of the House of the Undying, we should be safe. Hey, speaking of late '90s pop ...
Jerome Flynn: Bronn Was a British Pop Singer
The unscrupulous sellsword known only as Bronn is quick to bust a joke, as well as some skulls -- and apparently some exquisite harmonies.
"And I'll take with me the memories, to be my sunshine after the rain
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday."
"Must you do that whenever someone dies?"
Through a series of events so convoluted that even George R.R. Martin couldn't have seen it coming, Jerome Flynn became a British pop star. It all started with a fairly normal role on a U.K. drama series, Soldier Soldier. For one episode, Flynn and his co-star Robson Green performed a duet of "Unchained Melody," which gave the women of England an unexpected laundry situation when it apparently melted their collective panties.
The response was so overwhelming that no less a vulture than Simon Cowell approached them with a contract, presumably signed in blood and notarized by Satan. Their cover of "Unchained Melody" was released as a single and went straight to No. 1 on the U.K. charts, going on to become the best-selling single of 1995. Over the next two years, they released two full-length albums as Robson & Jerome that also topped the charts before Flynn presumably won his soul back from Satan in trial by combat, free to emerge 15 years later as the Imp's scrappy sidekick. Of particular note is their cover of "Up on the Roof," which is eerie, given the events of- oh, you haven't read the books? Well, you'll see.
Manna also trolls non-readers every Sunday night on Twitter.
