Roundup: Sci-Fi Central Casting

Two familiar faces will be appearing in recurring roles in CW shows this season.

Ty Olsson is one of those actors that keeps cropping up in genre shows, mostly because he's a good-looking, hard-working actor who's based in Vancouver. In recent years he's shown up in important guest or recurring roles on Once Upon a Time, Defying Gravity, V, Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, and Flash Gordon, among many others, plus movies like Breaking Dawn and Rise of the Planet of the Apes and straight dramas like Men in Trees.

This year he'll be on Supernaturalin a key recurring role as Benny, a dangerous vampire who helps Dean Winchester escape from purgatory. Olsson's character will first appear in Supernatural's season premiere on October 3--which tallies with the word from Comic-Con that Dean would be extricated from purgatory as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Grace Phipps, who played the title character's sidekick from the ABC Family one-season wonder The Nine Lives of Chloe King, will join The Vampire Diaries in the recurring role of April. Phipps is slated to first appear in the show's second episode.

Also: last week I alluded to a few new additions to Game of Thrones season 3, and I wanted to give a fuller run-down. Fourteen new cast members are joining the third season of HBO's Game of Thrones which is returning next year on March 31. Veteran actress Diana Rigg will play Lady Olenna Tyrell also known as The Queen of Thorns; Mackenzie Crook as wildling raider, Orell; Clive Russell as the knight Brynden or otherwise known as "The Blackfish" Tully; Nathalie Emannuel as former slave Missandei who becomes a translator to the slave trader Kraznys in Astapor; Kerry Ingram as Shireen Baratheon, the only child of Stannis Baratheon; Paul Kaye as Thoros of Myr, a member of the outlaw band known as the Brotherhood Without Banners and a Red Priest; Thomas Brodie-Sangster as the mysterious Jojen Reed who becomes an important ally to Bran Stark; Ellie Kendirck as Meera Reed, the eldest daughter of Howland Reed, sister to Jojen and a staunch Stark royalist; Richard Dormer as Lord Beric Dondarrion, the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners; Kristofer Hivju as Tormund Giantsbane, a famed wildling warrior and chief lieutenant of the King Beyond the Wall, Mance Rayder; Philip McGinley as Anguy, a skilled archer and key member of the Brotherhood Without Banners; Tara Fitzgerald as Selyse Baratheon, the wife of Stannis Baratheon; Tobias Menzies as Edmure Tully, the younger brother of Catelyn Stark and the recently-named Lord of Riverun following his father's death; and Anton Lesser as Qyburn, a former master of the Citadel.

Tags: Ty Olsson, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, Game of Thrones Follow me on Twitter  |  Follow me on Facebook