Lord of the Rings: Game of Thrones actor Joseph Mawle cast as villain in new Amazon series

Amazon’s high-profile new Lord of the Rings series has cast a Game of Thrones actor as its lead villain.

Deadline has confirmed that Joseph Mawle will play Oren in the series opposite Will Poulter and Markella Kavenagh.

Mawle has an impressive range of credits in British shows, having appeared in the BBC’s Birdsong, Ripper and Troy: Fall of a City.

He is best known to American audiences, though, as Benjen Stark in Game of Thrones, which drew to a close in May.

Lord of the Rings will return to New Zealand for the new series, which has a budget of £660m – more than triple what the original trilogy of films cost. This will make it the most expensive TV show ever made, surpassing Netflix’s The Crown.

New Zealand, where Peter Jackson’s three films were set and made for a total of £177m, beat rival Scotland to be named the production location for the show.

The TV show, set to be directed by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘s JA Bayona, will be set during the 3,441-year period before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring.