Posted in: HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: house of the dragon

House of the Dragon Season 3: Annie Shapero Cast as "Black Aly"

Report: HBO and showrunner Ryan Condal's House of the Dragon has cast Annie Shapero as Alysanne Blackwood, aka "Black Aly, " for Season 3.

As production on the highly anticipated third season of HBO and showrunner Ryan Condal's House of the Dragon rolls on, Deadline Hollywood is reporting exclusively that Annie Shapero (Red Skies) has been tapped for the role of fierce fighter Alysanne Blackwood, aka "Black Aly." Lord Benjicot Blackwood's aunt fights for Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) during the Dance of the Dragons before marrying Lord Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor). Though not listed as a series regular, Shapero's Blackwood will reportedly appear in over half of the season's eight episodes. The casting news is the latest in a series of additions to the Season 3 cast, which also includes James Norton as Alicent's (Olivia Cooke) cousin, Ormund Hightower, Tommy Flanagan as Lord Roderick Dustin, Dan Fogler as Ser Torrhen Manderly, Tom Cullen as Ser Luthor Largent, Joplin Sibtain as Ser "Bold" Jon Roxton, and Barry Sloane as Ser Adrian Redfort.

Along with the rollout of the news that production on the third season was underway, Condal sat down for a profile interview with THR about the new season and the series overall, and that included discussing the not-so-pleasant back-and-forth that Condal and George RR Martin (GRRM) got into last fall after GRRM criticized the series on his blog for the changes that were made that he wasn't a particularly big fan of. "It was disappointing," Condal shared. "I will simply say I've been a fan of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' for almost 25 years now, and working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of not only my career as a writer but my life as a fan of science-fiction and fantasy. George himself is a monument, a literary icon in addition to a personal hero of mine, and was heavily influential on me coming up as a writer." As for the work that the series is based on, Condal noted that the structure of the work puts them in the position of having to make changes and certain judgment calls.

"It's this incomplete history, and it requires a lot of joining of the dots and a lot of invention as you go along the way. I will simply say, I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did," Condal continued. "Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time. But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way. And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time." The Showrunner/EP added, "At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO because that's my job. So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that's what I have to say about it."

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