Naomi Watts: I hadn’t seen Game Of Thrones until prequel role came up

Naomi Watts has said she had never seen Game Of Thrones until she was approached for a role in the prequel.

Watts is part of the ensemble cast in the forthcoming HBO series, which is set thousands of years before the events depicted in Game Of Thrones.

But although Game Of Thrones has been one of the biggest TV programmes in recent years, Watts had never seen an episode until the new role came along.

She told Net-A-Porter’s digital magazine PorterEdit: “I didn’t start watching until I was approached about this job.”

Referring to her brother, photographer Ben Watts, she said: “But my brother, who is heavily into it, told me, ‘Under no circumstances are you going to turn this down.'”

The Mulholland Drive, King Kong and The Impossible actress, 50, said she was in “hook, line and sinker” over the role, but is anxious about how much her public profile will be boosted.

“I still have fears about that,” she said.

“I don’t really know what to prepare for.”

She remained tight-lipped over the programme, adding: “I am literally not allowed to say anything about it.”

Details of the series are so far very thin on the ground, but Watts is rumoured to be playing a socialite hiding a dark secret in the as-yet-untitled prequel.

She will be joined by the likes of John Simm, Miranda Richardson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Josh Whitehouse and Naomi Ackie in the programme, which HBO has said “chronicles the world’s descent from the Age Of Heroes into its darkest hour”.

George RR Martin, who wrote the books which HBO’s phenomenally successful fantasy epic was based on, will be an executive producer on the show, co-created with Jane Goldman.

Watts currently stars in drama series The Loudest Voice as news anchor Gretchen Carlson.

The series sees her star opposite Russell Crowe, who plays Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Ailes, who died in 2017, was abruptly dismissed from Fox News in July 2016 in the wake of a lawsuit filed by former anchor Carlson accusing him of sexual improprieties.

Watts described Carlson as a “hero”, adding: “She was the first, inadvertently bringing about the Me Too movement, and she doesn’t get a huge amount of credit for that.”