The five weirdest ‘Game of Thrones’ cameos
Television used to be the place where unknowns became stars, working their way up the ladder and making the jump into movies to enjoy an even more successful career if they were lucky enough, but the paradigm has shifted.
There’s no longer any distinction between a TV actor and a film actor as there used to be in the days of yore, a time before HBO and streaming had many of the biggest stars in the world taking their talents to the small screen and broadening their horizons.
The differences between a cameo and a guest star are stark, though, a distinction Game of Thrones tended to forget about on occasion when it set about indulging many of its fans by granting them an on-screen role.
Some of them were great, and some of them were positively dire, but in terms of who they were, what they did, and how they contributed, the following five are definitely the weirdest.
Five weird Game of Thrones cameos:
5. Aaron Rodgers (‘The Bells’, 2019)
NFL legend Aaron Rodgers spent a lot of time hyping up his impending appearance in Game of Thrones for what turned out to be mere seconds of fleeing screentime, and even at that, he didn’t contribute much to the penultimate episode of the fantasy epic.
He was named MVP after leading the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl title in 2010, was named the best player in the league on four separate occasions, and set countless other benchmarks during a stellar career in gridiron. For his fans, he wasn’t in it for too long; for those who don’t follow hand-egg, it didn’t mean a thing.
Rodgers was very briefly glimpsed as a Lannister archer helping an injured woman during the attack on King’s Landing, with one of his sport’s most esteemed modern practitioners continuing the latter seasons’ trend of roping in fans of the series for no other reason than ‘why not?’.
4. Will Champion (‘The Rains of Castamere’, 2013)
Quite possibly the greatest episode in Game of Thrones history, ‘The Rains of Castamere’ became one of the most acclaimed instalments of any small screen series ever made, and it’ll also be remembered as the one with the drummer from Coldplay.
Sticking to what made him famous in the first place, Will Champion plays the drummer in the wedding band belting out the tunes at the nuptials of Edmure Tully, but it would be an understatement of significant proportions to say the ceremony went tits up after that.
He wasn’t the first musician to guest star in Game of Thrones, but the episode he guested in adds his short-lived involvement an extra layer of notoriety, even if he was comfortably overshadowed by the ‘Red Wedding’.
3. Rob McElhenney (‘Winterfell’, 2019)
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator and Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney has developed a habit of swinging by the TV‘s most talked-about shows, having previously swung by two episodes of Lost as the swiftly-dispatched and suitably idiotic Aldo.
His Game of Thrones cameo does make a degree of sense, though, with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss having written the ‘Flowers for Charlie’ episode of It’s Always Sunny and played ‘Bored Lifeguard #1’ and ‘Bored Lifeguard #2’ in ‘The Gang Goes to a Water Park’.
Still, it’s Mac in Westeros at the end of the day, where he promptly takes an arrow straight to the eyeball after his servitude to Euron Greyjoy does not go according to plan. Martin Starr is in the exact same episode, and he gets an arrow to the face, too.
2. Gary Lightbody (‘Walk of Punishment’, 2013)
Dundonian slow-jammers Snow Patrol aren’t for everyone, but Game of Thrones fans got to hear Gary Lightbody test out his pipes in George R.R. Martin‘s universe whether they wanted to or not when he belted out ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’.
If singers are going to be guest stars on Game of Thrones, then there’s the apparent obligation for them to put those skills to the test, even if Lightbody doubles as an unnamed soldier holding Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister prisoner.
An easy way to inflict serious torture upon his captives would be to repeatedly sing ‘Chasing Cars’ directly in their faces on an endless loop, but even for Westeros, that probably would have been too harsh.
1. Ed Sheeran (‘Dragonstone’, 2017)
Who else could it possibly be? If ever there was a cameo that didn’t need to be in any show in the history of television, it was Ed Sheeran playing Ed Sheeran – but in Westeros – in ‘Dragonstone’.
He indulges the gathered Lannister forces with a soothing rendition of ‘Hands of Gold’, refuses to consider the possibility that acting requires performers to feel as though they’re not robots reciting dialogue in the most stilted fashion possible, and then fucks off for good to the relief of viewers everywhere.
People who love him may have thought it was great, but nothing shatters the immersion of a fantasy world quicker than a world-renowned singer looking and behaving exactly like themselves for no other reason than to shoehorn him in for a laugh.
