Since he graced the small screen on HBO’s epic fantasy series Game Of Thrones, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has been a hidden gem among this new generation of actors in Hollywood. Audiences loved to hate him and also saw him grow as Jaime Lannister, but his career on the big screen in Hollywood has only manifested smaller roles. Although his next upcoming role is also a television series, it places him front-and-center, as Western medieval history’s most well-known figure. From his fame-blasting emergence as a fantasy knight, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau will now play William the Conqueror in the BBC series King and Conqueror.

The intriguing irony of this role and Waldau’s casting is largely in its context. The roles of Jaime and William, although heir-apparent nobles at the base, divert largely from each other. It’s no surprise George R.R. Martin’s fantasy work in A Song Of Ice And Fire series was largely inspired by many different political events and cultures in Western medieval history, but this specific event of the Normans landing in Britain is something not directly analogized to Jaime Lannister’s period, but rather, in Westeros’ earlier history. This gives Waldau’s inhabiting of the role more flexibility to play the part based on his creative license surrounding real-world historical facts.

Nikolaj Wields Swords And Armies In A New Series

William the Conqueror was a descendant of Rollo, a key character in the Vikings television series.
William was the son of Duke Robert I of Normandy.

With the upswing and continuance in popularity in the early medieval era with shows like Vikings, The Last Kingdom, and Vikings: Valhalla creating an inadvertent chronology of British-medieval history, BBC’s King and Conqueror seems to continue that historical timeline from the perspective of its key historical figures. However, the responsibility of playing William the Conqueror is no small task as he is a figure that has been a household name to anyone who has ever read a history book or watched a medieval history documentary. William the Conqueror was a Norman Duke of France, whose circumstances and political leanings led him to send an army to England to conquer the island kingdom for himself.

But the excitement of William’s story isn’t just in its climax at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but rather in his scramble to secure power throughout his life. His early life is full of strife which forged his penchant for politics and battle, with uprisings, revolts, and court politics ripe in William’s story, there is a lot of Game of Thrones-like intrigue for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to embrace in character. The BBC has always been a great springboard for historical costume dramas, especially when concerning stories taking place in Britain. So how is Waldau’s William going to differ from Jaime Lannister?

From Fantasy To Historical Epic

Game of Thrones rocked the charts and Emmys during its eight seasons on HBO.
Before Kingdom of Heaven, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also played a small role in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.

King and Conqueror will be Waldau’s biggest role in the Historical Epic genre, but it’s not his first. Before he even arrested Ned Stark and got his hand chopped off in Game Of Thrones, he played Godfrey’s nephew and the village sheriff in Ridley Scott’s medieval masterpiece Kingdom Of Heaven. Although this was a small role, his character was a very privileged and wily individual, who plots with his father to kill their wealthy uncle on the road to Jerusalem. This small part certainly proved two things about his costume-drama debut in Hollywood; his ability to be an effective villain, and his appealing presence in an epic setting. Because of this, Waldau is both fit for a fantasy like Game of Thrones, and historical adaptations.

The beauty behind Waldau’s involvement in King and Conqueror is to see him in a familiar setting, full of castles, clashing swords, and court intrigue, but portraying a completely different kind of noble character. Jaime Lannister was a noble from a very affluent family in Westeros in Game of Thrones. However, his oath to the Kingsguard removed him from his rights of inheritance and lineage. Jaime indignantly touts his family name around and fervently keeps his secret romance with his sister intact, since it’s the only aspect of his life he has any agency in. When it comes to William the Conqueror, his name and position in his family were much closer to that of Jon Snow, as he was first known as William the Bastard.

His Character’s Historical Motivations Are Much Different From Jaime’s

Vikings: Valhalla is roughly 33 years before the events of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
James Norton is known for his roles in Little Women and Bob Marley: One Love.

Waldau’s new role as William the Conqueror may have to first toil with his origins before he is adorned with his later ‘Conqueror’ title. William was the son of the unmarried Duke Robert I of Normandy and his mistress, Herleva, making him an illegitimate heir and bastard. He inherited his father’s Dutchy quite early in life, leaving his childhood and adolescence wrought with anarchy and toil among the Norman court. This is where William would cut his teeth as a survivor of the violence and politics of the time and set him up for success once he set his eyes on England.

That being said, it was not only conquest that led to William landing in England. It is often simplified that William’s intentions of conquest were purely for glory to take England for his own. However, King and Conqueror aim to zero in on the deeper reasons William is pressed into his decisions that lead to the historic battle. James Norton, who plays William’s rival King Harold in the series, explains the predicament of the two leaders in an interview with Variety “Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy were two men destined to meet at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; two allies with no design on the British throne, who found themselves forced by circumstance and personal obsession into a war for possession of its crown.” King and Conqueror releases on the BBC and its associated platforms next year, and with so much claimed nuance teased in its plot, this could be the next great historical epic audiences have been craving.