'Game of Thrones' Favorite to Star in BBC America's 'The Watch'

Game of Thrones actor Richard Dormer is headed to a different mythical world.


Dormer, who played Beric Dondarrion on the HBO megahit, will star in The Watch at BBC America. The drama is based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, which have sold some 90 million copies.


Adam Hugill (1917), Jo Eaton-Kent, Marama Corlett (Blood Drive), Lara Rossi (Robin Hood) and Sam Adewunmi (The Missing) also star in the series, which is set to begin production in late September in South Africa.


Ordered to series in October 2018, The Watch is based on the "City Watch" subset of Pratchett's Discworld series. It's set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, where crime has been legalized. A group of misfit cops rises up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe.


Dormer will play Sam Vimes, captain of the Watch, who has seen his department's jurisdiction reduced to almost nothing. "I'm so thrilled to be part of this brilliant madness and mayhem," he said. "I was immediately drawn to the multitude of layers to Sam Vimes, and I find the dynamic between him and his band of disenfranchised comrades very compelling."


Eaton-Kent will play Constable Cheery, an ingenious, nonbinary forensics expert. Hugill will play Constable Carrot, an idealistic and naive new recruit; Corlett plays the mysterious Corporal Angua, who's charged with training Carrot and keeping him alive. Rossi will play Lady Sybil Ramkin, the last scion of Ankh-Morpork's nobility, who tries to fix the city via vigilantism. Adewunmi plays Carcer Dun, a wounded and wrong man out to take control of the city and exact revenge on an unjust reality.


"Sir Terry Pratchett is in the bloodstream of popular culture. He has a distinctly British kind of literary heart and humor, but his ideas are defiantly human and universal," said lead writer and executive producer Simon Allen (The Musketeers). "It’s been such a privilege to work with our world-class director [Craig Viveiros], producers and writers on building a television show that honors his legacy while striking out on its own in his name and spirit. Like the man whose genius inspired it, The Watch is a hopeful show that believes it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I can't wait for everybody to see our joyously brilliant cast light candles and, of course, flamethrowers."


Joy Wilkinson (Doctor Who), Catherine Tregenna (Torchwood), Amrou Al-Kadhi (Little America) and Ed Hime join Allen as writers on the eight-episode series from BBC Studios and Narrativia. Allen, director Viveiros, BBC Studios' Hilary Salmon, Ben Donald and Richard Stokes and Narrativia's Rob Wilkins executive produce.