Surprise surprise! After being forced to shut down production in Prague and tiding fans over with a book club on Twitter, The Wheel of Time has made its first casting announcement since December. This week, we learned who’ll be playing Egwene’s parents, Mat’s parents, and two key denizens of Emond’s Field.
(Note: The comments section for this piece will most likely contain spoilers for the Wheel of Time series.)
Lolita Chakrabarti (Riviera, Jekyll and Hyde) will be playing Marin Al’Vere, Egwene’s mom, with Michael Tuahine (Sea Patrol, Farscape) playing Bran Al’Vere, Egwene’s dad. Meanwhile, Mat’s dad Abell Cauthon will be played by Christopher Sciueref (300: Rise of an Empire, Exodus: Gods and Kings), while Mat’s mom Natti Cauthon will be played by Juliet Howland (Astral, The Secret).
David Sterne (The Wolfman) will play Emond’s Field busybody Cenn Buie.
Mandi Symonds (Casualty) will play Emond’s Field Wisdom Daise Congar.
Christopher Sciueref @Sciueref as Abell Cauthon
Juliet Howland @JulietHowland as Natti Cauthon
Mandi Symonds as Daise Conger pic.twitter.com/XZd7U7YcyW— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) June 24, 2020
Here are all the casting reveals so far:
- Moiraine and Lan
- Nynaeve, Egwene, Rand, Mat, and Perrin
- Thom Merrilin, Loial, Padan Fain, Logain
- Alanna Mosvani and her two warders, Ihvon and Maksim
- Tam al’Thor and Daryl McCormack in an undisclosed role
- Leane Sharif
- Liandrin Guirale
- Kerene Nagashi
Other cast-members, as revealed through photos from a table read in January, include Maria Doyle Kennedy (Orphan Black, Outlander) and Peter Franzén (Vikings) in undisclosed roles.
Greetings from Prague! Here are some photos from our recent table read on the #WOTonPrime set. You’ll see some familiar faces and some new ones too
. pic.twitter.com/pKxtnOV9M4
— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) January 22, 2020
— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) January 22, 2020
Although Prague allowed international film and TV crews to start filming again in May, the show has yet to resume production. There’s no word yet on how this will affect its tentative release date.
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The Eye of the World: Book One of The Wheel of Time
I just looked up David Sterne and oh that’s the perfect casting for Cenn!
Based on looks alone (I’m unfamiliar with all but Rosamund Pike), so far I’m not seeing a single casting decision that bothers me in the slightest. These latest continue that – especially Daise Congar. That actress looks a lot like how I have always pictured Daise.
I don’t care what anyone looks like. I am just hoping for great production values and the lack of cringey acting that you see in other fantasy adaptations.
As a fan of the books one thing does bother me about the casting so far, which is the people cast to play the folk of Two Rivers vary so much in appearance. Two rivers is supposed to be an insular community and I think the people’s would be more homogeneous. While this adds diversity to casting, Jordan’s books created a world of diverse peoples with distinct features, traits and appearances based on where they lived. You wouldn’t confuse a short bandy legged, hawk nosed Saldean with an Andorian I’ll see how it plays out
Kerene? What’s Kerene doing in Eye of the World? Flashback?
Kerene? What’s Kerene doing in Eye of the World? Flashback?
@5 princessroxana Looks like it…it wouldn’t make sense for them to do New Spring separately, and some of that info would be a good thing to have, so why not flashback? Since the first season is going to be more focused on Moiraine (and by extension Lan) it makes sense for their backstories to be fleshed out, so that new viewers would care. Besides that way maybe we’d get one of my favourite Lan lines (among a great many) – “you surrender after you’re dead”
Of course, that means we might also get Cadsuane :D Now that’s a casting I’d like to see…
Franzen appears to beplaying Kerene’s warder, per Cast photos during filming.
Since when was Daise the Wisdom???? If I recall, she takes over after Nyneave leaves, but is Nyneave no longer the Wisdom at the start? That’s a huge part of her character and motivation in terms of how she feels about the Emond’s Fielders, as well as her hang ups about her age.
Unfortunately I feel amazon is abandoning the unique differences between every nation’s people’s that we saw in the books, which I suppose doesn’t matter too much if acting and production are great but it hurts after coming to love both the physical and psychological differences from people such as Two River Folk to those of Tear and the Seanchan.
Light, I seriously hope they don’t let the Dark One’s touch taint the show too much! I’ve been waiting (impatiently) for this for so long I’d hate to be as disappointed as I have been with other adaptations.
I read all the books. I predict the series will be cancelled before reaching the story’s conclusion.
@1,5,6:
At a guess? Cadsuane’s contingent of loyal Aes Sedai, along with Cadsuane herself, will be making an early appearance. Based on what Rafe Judkins has said about expanding Logain’s role early in the show, I think we’re going to see his capture by Cadsuane, and perhaps Cadsuane will accompany the Aes Sedai who parade Logain through Caemlyn. Yes, I realize that Kerene dies in NS, but that isn’t important to the books. It could give us an Aes Sedai to die early in the story, perhaps even FROM the BA, like in NS.
@9:
I agree, that would be a severe undercut to Nynaeve’s internal motivations throughout the series. Maybe this is just the PR department not understanding that the character only becomes the Wisdom later.
@12:
Really going out on a limb, there, huh? Since nearly 99% of shows that get this far in development won’t make it through three seasons.
Having read all the books twice I am happy to see the production moving forward. The casting so far is quite pleasing to me. I am very happy with Min’s casting. I eagerly await both Elayne and Aviendha.