For some reason the folks over at HBO’s GAME OF THRONES has seen fit to recast the role of roguish mercenary Daario Naharis. Out is Ed Skrein and in his place for Season 4 is going to be Michiel Huisman (TREME and NASHVILLE). The big mystery is just why Skrein was dropped.
Now the casting of Skrein was met with the requisite online griping because he did not look anything at all like the way writer George R.R. Martin described the character; for those who don’t know Naharis in the books is described as looking like a character from Dragonball Z and would really stand out as extra bizarre next to other characters what with the established visual aesthetic of the HBO show. I personally liked Skrein in the role; he was a good fit for the character and he had immediate chemistry with Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys.
On the positive side Huisman is a very good actor and I would go so far as to say a much better one than Skrein so on that front there won’t be any problems but I am curious to see his chemistry with Clarke and if he can pull off the effortless swagger that Skrein seemed to have (which must have come from his side gig as a rapper) and can make me like his Naharis as quickly as I came to like Skrein’s.
Hmm… weird. I bought Skrein as Daario Naharis. He is supposed be really effortlessly sexy and Skrein is very aesthetically pleasing and like you said, has swagger. I have never seen Huisman in action but you could imagine him serving you in Starbucks… not sure that’s the desired effect.
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Huisman does have a very pedestrian look about him. I am wondering if they plan on going a little bit more in the direction of the book’s look for Naharis to cover the fact that Huisman is so ordinary looking.
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I’d like to see the blue beard and gold teeth. In my mind he’s a slightly more chiseled Eugene Hutz.
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