14. Maester Aemon Targaryen's Actor Is Blind Too
Maester Aemon Targaryen of the Night's Watch is a deceptively pivotal figure in the history of Westeros. Aemon turned down the throne in order to continue his life as a Maester and exiled himself to the Wall so he couldn't meddle in the affairs of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, this inadvertently led to his family's downfall his great-grandnephew Aerys eventually took the throne, screwed everything up and got the royal bloodline massacred. With such history, the role demands a good actor, and not just a cast filler. To that end, they picked up Peter Vaughan, a highly-respected and long-time member of the British fraternity. Some of you might have been impressed by how Vaughan so ably affects Aemon's ailments. Of course, when you're 90 it's pretty easy to look frail, but looking blind is a whole different ball game, and Vaughan appears to manage it a treat. Well let me tell you a secret Vaughan isn't acting blind, he is blind, or at least partially. Really, it takes method acting to a whole new level, and Vaughan deserves praise for staying in the acting game despite a potentially career-ending ailment. Yet we don't need to give the bloke platitudes he rocks in the part, and long may that continue. Bonus point he also has a strange six-degrees-of-separation relationship with fellow cast member Sean Bean. Vaughan once played Denethor in a BBC radio adaptation of Lord Of The Rings, the father of Boromir, who would eventually be so memorably played by the Sheffield native.