Doctor Who has a very special guest star on tonight, and it’s none other than Maisie Williams of Game of Thrones fame.
Doctor Who is known for pulling in all kinds of talent from the U.K. and abroad. In the recent past, big-name stars like Sir Ian McKellen an Neil Gaiman have starred in or written episodes. We can now add Maisie Williams to the list.
Maisie isn’t the first actor from Game of Thrones to appear on Doctor Who in the reboot era. She is in good company with both her male and female co-stars having been on the show over the past nine seasons.
Back when Martha Jones was travelling with the Doctor in the TARDIS, they made a little pit-stop where the Doctor lost his Time Lord memory and lived a human life in the 1910s in Britain. The episode arc was a two-parter: “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood.” Two of the actors in that episode, Harry Lloyd, who played Jeremy Baines, and Thomas Sangster, who played Tim Latimer, later ended up on Game of Thrones. They played the now deceased characters of Viserys Targaryen, brother of Daenerys Targaryen who had a pot of molten gold dumped over his head, and Jojen Reed, who was the guide along with his sister Meera for Bran’s trip north.
Remember when the Eleventh Doctor, along with Amy Pond, met River Song for the first time in the two-parter “Flesh and Stone” and “The Time of Angels”? In that same episode, Father Octavian was also present during this epic encounter. He was played by none other than Ian Glenn. Glenn is known to Game of Thrones fans as Daenerys Targaryen’s sometime protector, Jorah Mormont, who last season tried to get back into the good graces of his khaleesi.
Games of Thrones actors who have been on Doctor Who are not limited to the men. Emmy Award winning actress Diana Rigg, who plays the Queen of Thorns, A.K.A. Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones, appeared on Doctor Who alongside her real-life daughter Rachel Sterling in the episode “The Crimson Horror.” The Doctor and Clara got to encounter Mrs. Gillyflower and Ada, played by Rigg and Sterling respectively, in a creepy Victorian Era episode where aliens were living off the body of Mrs. Gillyflower.
Peter Capaldi, as the Twelfth Doctor, has also encountered a Game of Thrones actor. In the 2014 Doctor Who Christmas Special, Faye Marsay, who plays the girl who is Arya’s companion in the House of Black and White, also played Shona, one of the people on the space station fighting off the crabs “Last Christmas.”
Now there are plenty more actors who have appeared in both Doctor Who and Game of Thrones in the reboot era alone. The ones listed above are our favorites, buts that’s not to say we haven’t appreciated the multiple drop ins by Mark Gatiss and others. It will be fun to see how memorable Maisie Williams’ character will turn out to be. Maybe she could even be a new companion if Arya kicks the bucket this season on Game of Thrones.
Check out Doctor Who in BBC America today at 9:00 p.m.