Filming in Spain has been a whirlwind, jumping from one beautiful historical location to another in the past month, bringing us Game of Thrones news and spoilers along the way. And today, Spain is delivering again in the form of unexpected casting news!

Los Siete Reinos has gotten its hands on a photograph, via Hoy‘s María José Torrejón, taken this past Monday in Cáceres city, showing a recognizable face along with a Game of Thrones actor. L7R’s photo shows English actor Tom Hopper sitting with James Faulkner (Randyll Tarly) on a bench in the city. That, combined with another sighting of the actor with GoT stars this week, and it seems that Hopper is the newest addition to the cast of Game of Thrones season 7.

What part is Hopper taking on? That’s the really surprising piece of info. While not officially confirmed by HBO, there is evidence indicating that the actor will be playing the recast role of Dickon Tarly. In season 6, we briefly encountered Sam’s jock younger brother at the tense Horn Hill family dinner, being played then by Freddie Stroma. We’ll be seeing more of Dickon this year, but we’ll save those spoilers for below the cut!

So why the recast? It’s likely that Stroma has a scheduling conflict, since he’s currently working on the new ABC series Time After Time in which he stars as H.G. Wells.

As for Hopper, he’s a welcome addition to the cast, and will be a familiar face to many GoT fans, from his work playing Billy Bones on Black Sails, Sir Percival in Merlin, and Arminius in the recent History Channel series Barbarians Rising.



More info- and spoilers- below!

Now, about those spoilers! The Cáceres region has been very busy this past week, and Hopper is a part of the action. The actor has reportedly been spotted working out at a gym in Cáceres with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Jerome Flynn. That makes sense, since we’ve learned from our sources that next season, Dickon Tarly is part of the southern Westeros scenes, and has scenes with Randyll, Jaime Lannister, and Bronn, among others.

Game of Thrones has cleared out of Trujillo Castle, where filming took place earlier this week, and the focus is now in Malpartida de Cáceres for the next few weeks. We can confirm that Dickon and his father are present during the much-discussed ambush scene, when Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons attack a caravan train bringing goods looted from Highgarden back to King’s Landing.

Los Siete Reinos confirms that the shooting began in Las Breñas yesterday and will finish on Friday. The caravans sighted in Las Breñas, and seven buses full of extras have been brought to the location, plus about 60 horses. We’ve heard from our own sources that we can expect to see Dickon and Randyll Tarly both fighting during this ambush/battle scene.

After filming in Las Breñas, filming will move over to Barrueco de Arriba this weekend. Overall, filming is expected to take about 22 days in Malpartida with these locations, and we expect new details from Spain to keep on coming!

So, readers, what do you think of the casting news?