Entertainment

'Game of Thrones' Daario Without Hair — What?!

by Anna Klassen

The wait is nearly over. Put away your fan fiction and bleach blonde hair dye, Khaleesi and Daario are retuning to your television sets on April 12. The newly cast Michiel Huisman, who took over the role of Daario after Ed Skrein peaced out with a lame excuse — we won't get into it — made us instantly weak at the knees with his cut-from-stone physique and brooding one-liners. And lest us forget the real crowning achievement of Game of Thrones ' new Daario: A beautiful head of hair and dark brunette beard to match.

Original Daario Naharis' face was as smooth as a baby's bottom (or so we imagined), but the role of Daario — who is the reigning seductor of all things blood and babes — is better imagined with a scruffy attitude and face to match. Enter Huisman, whose luscious locks were allowed to caress the Mother of Dragons like so many men had deigned to do. (Here's looking at you, Jorah Mormont.)

Huisman is currently one of Hollywood's hottest entities, appearing in everything from Reese Witherspoon's Wild to the upcoming Age of Adeline starring Blake Lively. But before he was adoring the big screen and our bedtime fantasies, the Dutch actor was a series regular on a lesser known (to Americans) Ductch television series, De co-assistent, which ran from 2007 to 2010 and featured a clean-shaven Michiel Huisman.

That's right. While we know him as a mountain man, an urban hipster, a grizzled warrior, and fodder for our wet dreams, the Dutch know him as Hugo Biesterveld, a boyish young doctor. And the contrast is jarring.

As a reminder, here's original Daario, played by Ed Skrein

And here's Huisman as Daario, beard in tact:

And here's baby-faced Michiel Huisman á la De co-assistent:

Cannot. Even.

Please keep your beautiful facial hair, Huisman. By the old gods and the new, I beg of you.

Images: HBO; Four One Media; Tumblr