'Game of Thrones': Gwendoline Christie Joins for Season 2

The actress will play Brienne, Maid of Tarth, on the HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s epic best-sellers.

12:28 PM PDT 7/8/2011 by Lesley Goldberg

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Gwendoline Christie

Gwendoline Christie is joining the cast of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

The actress, whose credits include the feature The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassas, will play Brienne, Maid of Tarth.

Author George R.R. Martin, who penned the books on which the series is based and serves as a writer-producer on the HBO series, announced the casting on his blog Friday.

“This was another one of those cases where there was hardly any debate,” he said. “Gwendoline gave a great reading, and her look was just perfect.”

In the books, Brienne is a highly skilled warrior and would rather be a knight than a wife. She’s described as odd because of her height and abnormal strength and near-absence of female sexual characteristics. She’s sent to escort Jamie Lannister (played in the series by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to King’s Landing to exchange him for Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) after their capture.

Christie is the second addition to Season 2; Tudors actress Natalie Dormer recently joined as Margaery Tyrell, a beautiful and shrewd woman from House Tyrell. She is set to marry King Robert’s brother Renly Baratheon, in part to support his bid to take the Throne from King Joffrey.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit