Being the first episode, a show’s future highly hinges on how the pilot is received, as a lackluster beginning can prompt studios to pull the plugs off the show early. While exceptions exist, as The Office went on to become extremely successful despite an underwhelming beginning, oftentimes, great shows succeed in nailing the pilot, and Game of Thrones is no different.
But before Winter Is Coming premiered to critical acclaim, the original pilot for the show came close to getting the whole show canned, which featured a cameo from George R.R. Martin.
George R.R. Martin Was Left in the Editing Room with Game of Thrones‘ Original Pilot
When George R.R. Martin gave David Benioff and Dan Weiss the blessing to adapt his acclaimed novel to the small screen, Martin also filmed a cameo as a Pentoshi nobleman for the first episode. However, this cameo was lost after some heavy reshoots, which ended up changing the pilot completely. For example, in the original pilot, which was filmed in the Autumn of 2009, Tamzin Merchant was cast as Daenerys Targaryen instead of Emilia Clarke.
But while the cast and crew thought it was great, the higher-ups at HBO were less than thrilled by the results and almost canned the show before it even aired.
This led to massive reshoots and rewrites, which ended up changing the pilot completely, but in doing so, they also had to exclude the cameo of the author. The GOT creator recalled:
It was, sad to say, left on the cutting-room floor. It was during Daenerys’ wedding and I was a Pentoshi nobleman in the background, wearing a gigantic hat.
While HBO was open for another cameo, as the former president of HBO Entertainment, Sue Naegle, previously expressed Martin is welcome anytime, it might be a long wait if ever.
George R.R. Martin’s Potential GOT Cameo Is Still Far Away
With House of the Dragons season 2 hitting the screens, which is one of the several GOT spin-offs that are currently in development, there seems to be plenty of room for a cameo from the author. However, when asked about it, George R.R. Martin stressed that he has no intentions to film a cameo for future GOT shows until he’s done with The Winds of Winter.
During his appearance on SDCC, he said (via IGN):
I don’t know. For the last couple years since COVID hit I’ve barely left my house. Also, you may not know this but there’s this book I’m writing and it’s a little late. So I won’t be doing any acting until I finish and deliver that book and if the show is still running then then maybe.
Considering it has been 13 years since A Dance with Dragons dropped, it can’t be said for certain when Martin will be done with the next book, a cameo from the author seems distant for now.
Game of Thrones is available to stream on Max.
