I only said months judging from the hands-on role he seems to have taken with casting and the pilot more generally so far and the one-script-per-season arrangement I read about. If he waives that option and doesn't involve himself with the day to day operations of the show, the series wouldn't take him away from writing for nearly as long.
Also, because he's commenting on the casting, I think people have gotten the impression he's got a lot more of a role in this than he has. The multi-award-winning and extremely experienced casting director Nina Gold, who has worked on most of the major HBO and BBC drama series of the last few years, is the person who actually picks out the shortlist of which actors she thinks can do the job, and then forwards it to Benioff and Weiss, who narrow it down further, and only then they send the casting tapes for the shortlist to GRRM with their thoughts. I don't think GRRM even 'has' to okay them, but obviously they want his input. Then they move on to the next role.
As for the clues, the speed with which they are being solved shows that all he does is goes on the IMDB, YouTube or Wikipedia page for each actor and makes some stuff up for them
GRRM: another update on ADWD
- 07/10/2009 06:09:41 AM
1410 Views
It's coming down to the wire. Again.
- 07/10/2009 12:39:09 PM
822 Views
Would anyone else besides myself gladly give up the TV series for faster completion of the books?
- 07/10/2009 12:43:20 PM
733 Views
I don't see how that would be relevent. If they canceled he might get disheartened.
- 08/10/2009 05:07:23 AM
769 Views
Better that he be disheartened for a few weeks than have him spend months on scriptwriting, etc.
- 08/10/2009 11:55:25 AM
675 Views
I'm also guessing this means there's little chance of resolving the cliffhangers from Feast.
- 07/10/2009 05:34:39 PM
752 Views
I think I need an electronic reading device....
- 08/10/2009 05:06:09 AM
657 Views
Not to worry, they'll be cheap by the time this book comes out *NM*
- 08/10/2009 05:40:55 PM
254 Views
*NM*
I'm starting to lose interest. It's hard to stay excited for years when aFfC sucked balls. *NM*
- 09/10/2009 03:29:08 AM
272 Views