Why A Game Of Thrones Actor Is Suing The City Of Los Angeles For $40 Million
Joseph Gatt, who briefly appeared on "Game of Thrones," is suing the city of Los Angeles for $40 million dollars over his 2022 arrest.
The charges against Gatt were dropped this year, and now the actor is firing back at the LAPD over an arrest that branded the actor as a pedophile and, according to him, stalled and ruined his career. "Defendants, using threats, intimidation and coercion, and with no cause, let alone probable cause, subjected Gatt—a successful actor with numerous film and television series credits, including 'Game of Thrones' and 'Banshee,' among many others—to an utterly baseless arrest, unlawful detention, unlawful search and seizure of property, and malicious prosecution in which Gatt was alleged to have electronically communicated with a minor in a sexually explicit manner," a portion of the lawsuit reads (per Deadline).
The arrest in question involved a video on Cameo that Gatt apparently made for a then-16 year old fan living in Washington, whom Gatt's lawyers describe as "admittedly obsessed fan of Gatt." Apparently, in the aftermath of the arrest, Gatt was silenced by authorities, and he also says that the people who brough the charges against him barely did their due diligence before holding him accountable for a crime he did not commit.
Joseph Gatt says that the city of Los Angeles violated his Constitutional rights
British actor Joseph Gatt — who has also appeared in projects like the first "Thor" film, "Star Trek Into Darkness," "Dumbo," and "Black Adam" — also claimed in the lawsuit that he was targeted and ultimately silenced by Los Angeles' former deputy district attorney Angela Brunson. Gatt and his legal team allege that Brunson, known for her conservative views, was aware of Gatt's support for liberal causes — including the Black Lives Matter movement — and, furthermore, Gatt's support for Brunson's political rival George Gascón. Not only that, but Gatt's legal team says that both Brunson and Gatt were involved in the "high-performance sports car community," so Brunson was able to target him and persecute him accordingly without revealing her personal connections to the actor.
It's important to remember that as of this writing, these allegations are just that: allegations. Still, it's unsettling to think that Gatt was somehow chosen as a target and accused of horrifying sexual impropriety with a minor simply because of one official — so we'll just have to wait and see how Gatt's lawsuit shakes out.
Who did Joseph Gatt play on Game of Thrones?
So who exactly did Joseph Gatt even play on "Game of Thrones?" That would be an unnamed Thenn warg, whom Glenn played across three episodes. Gatt's character, like other characters on the show identified as "wargs," can enter the minds of animals and control them, a power typically confined to one animal. For Gatt's warg, he's tied to an owl, an animal he, at one point, uses to physically attack Jon Snow (Kit Harington) during an altercation.
That's the "warg" part of the equation, so what does "Thenn" refer to? The Thenn are a group of "free folk" — meaning they exist north of the Wall at the northern tip of Westeros and beyond the control of the realm — and Gatt's particular Thenn allies himself with Ygritte (Rose Leslie) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) when Jon first meets the group of wildlings. During the battle between the Night's Watch and the wildlings, Gatt's character is killed by Jon's fellow Night's Watch brother and best friend Samwell Tarly (John Bradley).