Richard Schiff, call your agent: Mandy Patinkin just stole your job. The ‘Tinker’s stepping in as Odin in Amazon’s live-action adaptation of Sony’s God Of War games, Deadline reported today. He’ll be facing off against Ryan Hurst, who’s been cast as the titular war god Kratos, in a Prime Video series written and showrun by Battlestar Galactica and For All Mankind head honcho Ronald D. Moore.
Schiff played Odin in 2022’s God Of War Ragnarök, doing the voice and motion capture for the big bad who went unseen in the 2018 reboot of the series. It was an interesting choice, turning the Norse Allfather into a slightly built, smooth-talking schemer who looked and sounded just like Toby from The West Wing, but it worked: Schiff elevated a story that was otherwise more “sad dad” drudgery wrapped around a mechanically impressive action game.
Patinkin will no doubt bring a different energy to the role, and hey, maybe Odin will even sing a tune or two. The star of The Princess Bride, Homeland, and Chicago Hope joins a cast that includes Teresa Palmer, Max Parker, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as three other Norse gods—Sif, Heimdall, and Thor, respectively. Hurst, meanwhile, is a God Of War vet; the Sons Of Anarchy star played Thor in Ragnarok. Casting for three other pivotal roles from the game, Kratos’ young son Atreus, disempowered Norse goddess Freya, and the disembodied head of the smart-talking god Mimir, has yet to be announced.
The adaptation of Sony Santa Monica’s PlayStation hit doesn’t have a release window yet, but it almost definitely won’t be a one-and-done series: Amazon picked it up for two seasons from the jump.