Alexander Siddig Talks Joining ‘Game of Thrones’

The Toronto Sun gives us our first interview with Alexander Siddig about his role in the new season of Game of Thrones, premiering April 12 on HBO. Conducted during the press junket in London last week, the newspaper includes interviews with several members of House Martell in this piece; we’ve excerpted Sid’s quotes.

“It’s fun doing another big, big, big show,” said a grinning Alexander Siddig, who plays Game of Thrones’ Doran Martell, the Prince of Dorne. Star Trek fans will remember Siddig as Deep Space Nine’s charming Dr. Julian Bashir, while 24 buffs know him as reformed terrorist Hamri Al-Assad from that show’s sixth season.

Joining the massive Game of Thrones family – that’s 166 cast members, 5,000 extras and more than 1,000 crew for this season alone – was surprisingly easy. Because unlike a brand new series, where there’s always uncertainty about finding an audience, Game of Thrones is already a success. To put it mildly.

“Everybody is really happy, because they’re all on a hit show,” Siddig said during interviews in London, where the Season 5 world premiere was held last week. “We don’t have that whole year of where we’re wondering whether or not people are going to like the show.”

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But despite its staggering scope, Game of Thrones is a show about intimate, relatable drama. While Dorne’s House Martell must contend with the civil war ravaging Westeros, the family is also dealing with last season’s death of Prince Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) at the hands of Ser Gregor “the Mountain” Clegane, adding to the already bad, bad blood between the Martells and the ruling Lannisters.

“Half of my nation would like to go to war now,” Siddig said of Prince Doran’s mindset. “Should we be going to war? Should I put at risk all the people in my nation? How many people are going to die? These are the things I grapple with.”

(Read the full story here…)