George R.R. Martin Is Only Allowed To Cameo In House Of The Dragon When He Finishes The Winds Of Winter [Comic-Con]

George R.R. Martin is a novelist, screenwriter, TV producer, notable procrastinator, and the mind behind HBO's biggest series of all time. There are plenty more titles and accolades that he can boast, but the one thing he still can't add to his resume is a cameo on either of his big, dragon-filled fantasy adaptations. Apparently, that won't be changing any time soon. /Film's own Jacob Hall attended the "House of the Dragon" panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, where a fan asked if viewers might see Martin appear in a cameo role. At least for now, the answer is no — but Martin did leave the door open for a possible future appearance, and the showrunners on the panel seemed more than welcome to the idea. 

In all fairness, it's not hard to see why Martin would want to stay clear of a Targaryen battle for dominance — word on the street is they have 17 dragons, and that's a lot of fire to avoid. But it turns out the dragons have nothing to do with this. Martin has his own reasons for keeping away from filming, as he explained to fans at Comic-Con. He said, "For the last couple of years since COVID hit, I've hardly left my house. I've been trying to stay away from COVID." Then, he coyly added, "Also, you may not know, but there's this book that I'm writing. It's a little late."

Unsurprisingly, the hall erupted into chaos at the mention of "The Winds of Winter," the much-anticipated next chapter of "A Song of Fire and Ice." Martin went on to say that he has no time to appear in anything "until I finish and deliver that book." He added, "If the show is still going" when the book is done, then "who knows? Maybe I'll show up."

Ah yes, how optimistic. The book may or may not be done before this potentially four-season show is complete.

Martin has been working on "The Winds of Winter" since 2011 — so long that the HBO series ended up surpassing his novels and beating them to the end of the saga. Things got pretty dire for the book readers at that point, and by now, fans have pretty much given up hope that the novel series will ever be completed, especially since another book, "A Dream of Spring," is set to follow. But it's really hard to abandon hope when Martin keeps promising that the ending is on the way.

Maybe the hope of a cameo will be the final push that gets him past the home stretch! After all, it's been a longtime dream of his to appear in a cameo role. At least, I assume that's true, given that he was twice expected to appear in "Game of Thrones" before his cameo roles fell through, He explained at the panel, "I did do a cameo in the original pilot of 'Game of Thrones,' but they reshot most of the pilot, so I was left on the cutting room floor."

The second time around, he was meant to be one of the severed heads that Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) forces Sansa (Sophie Turner) to stare at in the first season, but "then they found out how expensive it is to make a severed head, so they just bought a box of used severed heads." One of those used severed heads ended up being George W. Bush, which certainly didn't go unnoticed. Luckily, "House of the Dragon" has a much bigger budget than the first season of "Thrones," so maybe the time has finally come for Martin's head to be put on a spike! But only if he actually finishes up "The Winds of Winter."

Expect to see plenty of severed heads when "House of the Dragon" finally arrives on August 21, 2022, but don't expect any of them to be George R.R. Martin (or, as far as we know, George W. Bush).