Promotion for Game of Thrones is in full swing now that we are a mere 11 days away from the season premiere. Cast members have been making the rounds at various media outlets, doing their best to hype the final season without spoiling anything. Today brings even more interviews our way from the Stark siblings Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, and Isaac Hempstead Wright; a Lannister and his sidekick, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Jerome Flynn; Red Priestess Carice van Houten; and Mother of Dragons Emilia Clarke.
Best friends Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams stopped by Good Morning America to share their thoughts on how it all wraps up. “I don’t know if it’s what people are expecting,” Williams says before Turner chimes in with “I think some people will be satisfied, and others…not so much.” Well that certainly narrows it down!
Take a look at the clip below for what they stole from the set and what it was like growing up on Thrones.
At ExtraTV, Maisie Williams reacts to basketball player Kobe Bryant wanting to be on Arya’s kill list, and Sophie Turner talks about how it was to work with her friend Maisie:
Isaac Hempstead Wright gives a little more information about season eight in his interview with Esquire. “It’s bigger! It’s better! It’s even more epic!” He then gets serious and says, “Obviously there are some big battles. Episode three is going to be something else. There are definitely things wrapping up from many, many seasons ago where you’re like: oh, I never thought that would come back.”
Wright then reveals an interesting tidbit from his final day of filming. “The very last scene I shot – and it was a lot of other people’s last scene – it was actually quite pathetic, everyone was in floods of tears. It was so actorly. They read out ‘that’s a wrap’, then David and Dan gave a speech. And I remember thinking: I’m not going to cry. I’m feeling fine. Then they brought out our wrap gifts, which were these framed storyboards from a key scene, and the waterworks turned on.”
Could this be a hint that Bran survives? If not, then perhaps many other characters go out with him…
Speaking with Indulge Xpress, onscreen pals Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Jerome Flynn discuss where their characters left off, as Flynn jokes that Jaime “goes off, and he doesn’t say a word. No mention to his old friend, not even a message…” Coster-Waldau quips back that “The Mountain was about to chop off my head. I didn’t really have much time to make calls!” He declines to say whether the two reunite, but states “it is the final season, so you would imagine that we would move towards some resolution when it comes to the major questions.” Flynn adds, “With a fight or two in between…”
As for their last days, both actors express the sadness and finality of it. Coster-Waldau’s story wrapped up in “a perfect way. I can’t talk about the scenes, but it was the perfect ending to my whole experience of being on this show. It was a beautiful day, Northern Ireland, it was a great crew, great scenes. I’d seen quite a few of these farewell speeches by this point. I remember I was like, ‘Why are people getting so emotional? It’s ridiculous. I’m way too hard for that.'”
“Then, they give you this beautiful bit of a little framed bit of storyboard — mine was when my hand is chopped off. On the back, they write some nice words to you, and then suddenly, I felt some wet stuff on my face. I was like, ‘God! Errrr! I must be coming down with a cold.'” I think we will all have wet faces by the end!
Build Series NYC conducted a live interview with Carice Van Houten, in which she also expresses how difficult it is to say goodbye to the show. “It’s funny because everything I do now is the last time…When I did my last scene I actually was very, very emotional, and I didn’t see it coming.” She admits she “wept when it was over,” and that it was a “release” since most of the cast suppressed their emotions over the finality of it until the very end.
Speaking of the end, Van Houten confesses she doesn’t know all the details. “I’d rather not know much…I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, and I like it that way.” Does that mean Melisandre won’t make it to the finale? Given she predicted her death to Varys last season, it wouldn’t be too surprising.
Check out the entire interview for the gift she received after burning Shireen, dealing with grueling shoots, and more!
Finally, Emilia Clarke made an appearance last night at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, going through not only ten years of playing Daenerys in Game of Thrones but also through the two brain hemorrhages she suffered while filming:
Check out the video for the whole thing! Emilia is, as ever, a joy to watch. More than that, it’s really inspiring to see her talk so honestly about her health issues.
Is that photo of Dany from the new season?!?
Yes 🙂
Luka Nieto,
Wow…
Thanks Luka! Hope we get the premiere title today since it’s the Red Carpet.
Jack Bauer 24,
One can hope.
the red carpet is today? not a bit early?
Pretty sure “last scene” means “last scene we shot”, not “last scene the character appears in”. I don’t think it gives anything away about whether a character lives or dies.
I’m happy to hear that things we didn’t expect to come back will be resolved. I wonder what it could be referring to, given how much they’ve wrapped up the last couple seasons.
Also, I must say, Carice van Houten is outrageously gorgeous and classy.
Very elegant.
In my mind, the title of the first episode is “Shall we Begin?”.
Dee Stark,
Yes, I think it is a bit early – too much chance of leaks. Also, if critics, etc. are invited, I absolutely do not want to read any smug oh you guys are really gonna love this! stuff. May as well have Ed Sheeran stroll through the entire season, singing narrative songs, like how Glenn Yarborough (IMO) bollocks up that first Hobbit animated TV show. Yuck. I want everybody on the internet to see it for the first time all at once. Maybe I should just avoid the internet stuff until the season is over!
Luka Nieto,
Jack Bauer 24,
Can you give me exact time for red carpet and premiere..
YES.
Adorably precious too.
“Does that mean Melisandre won’t make it to the finale?” Or maybe she only reads her own parts, like Gemma? I wouldn’t actually hope for her to survive though; she definitely has some huge stuff to do first, but she (like Beric) is finally ready for death when it’s all over…
Dragonbringer,
HBO Latinoamerica tweeted that they’d be live streaming the event on Facebook, so I’d expect the same from HBO in the the US. But I think they begin streaming the red carpet at 5:30pm Eastern
https://twitter.com/HBOLAT/status/1113213218183368704
Jay Targ,
Thank you..
We’re in crunch time now, and I’m starting to get worried. I’m hearing a lot about the aftermath trailer and time travel and alternate timelines. Please, please, please, do not destroy this show with time travel. I’ll be crushed if the final season is spent discussing the physics of time travel, butterfly effect, etc. Do not turn this into another Lost!
djs111,
Don’t worry: the contents of Ep1 has already been leaked and, if you managed to stay unsullied so far, the risk of being spoiled now is minimal: now all the buzz is about the endgame no-one knows.
What a great interview with Emilia on Colbert! I love the story she tells about Kit relentlessly complaining about his shooting conditions and his heavy costume. The cast sure like to poke fun at him don’t they? 🙂
Yeah last season the red carpet was 4 days before the premiere and this time it’s 11 days. With how guarded they’ve been with Season 8, it had to have been a scheduling thing.
@JayTarg Thanks! The GoT twitter will also be posting updates https://twitter.com/GameOfThrones/status/1113430794956091392
Inga,
Thank you! I did read the episode 1 spoiler, but it had no surprises. I want the surprises to stay intact! And I dislike when a reviewer throws shade or praise on something that is not available to the general public as yet. Again, thanks!
if there were any leaks, youtube would go full apeshit within the time certain folks need to get in front of their webcams. all i see instead is the usual bs by the usual morons…
So are we going to find out what pod did with those ladies. That would be a huge callback.
Joey,
Lost final was perfect in my opinion. The problem was the last season itself not the final. The final is something I expected it would be since season 1.
Joey,
How can the final season NOT involve a twist related to the timeline? This is all just unspoiled speculation on my part…but it seems Bran’s time travel has to have impacts beyond confirmation of Jon’s origins and LF’s schemes.
I would not be surprised to find that many things in the story come from Bran’s, or 3ER’s past attempts at averting disaster from the White Walkers…Aerys’s “Burn them all”, the Wall, the prince that was promise legend planted in Rhaegar’s head, etc.
“The ink is dry” could refer to the fact that these impacts can’t be undone (thus 3ER is desperate to prevent Bran from further “mistakes”)…even if, in the now-altered timeline that follows the interference, the time traveler does not go back and make that interference again (I.e. Ned hears something when Bran calls to him on the steps of Tower of Joy, that becomes permanent even though Bran says nothing the next time he visits that scene) (those thoughts come from current rewatch of season 6)
I have started to wonder if the crazy seasons are actually due to timeline distortions??
Was current Bran “late” in getting to 3ER because a previous “iteration” of Bran altered his own timeline, through impacts to events before his birth?
Is Bran’s story one of 3ER learning from multiple iterations and finally getting it right?
I hope time travel doesn’t overpower the story that got us all hooked. But I would be surprised if it doesn’t play a part…even if it’s just Bran learning that he must help by using/sharing knowledge of history to help the fight in the present, without influencing (purposely or accidentally) the past…while we learn how much of the story was driven by his/3ER past interference (did the Long Night/last hero happen in the past? Or did the current story get planted as legend in the past?)
That would make it very different from Lost, since it would wrap up the story we have followed all along. My recollection of Lost is that they just abandoned much of the hung guns (Dharma shipments? Polar bears?) and central mystery and questions that we were vested in (the island, where characters were still alive, was real but left largely unexplained), and pivoted to a DIFFERENT mystery/story for the last season and resolved that instead (the sideways timeline, new in last season, was confirmed to be a form of limbo, where they could find each other and move on to afterlife). I was not a fan…it just seemed to make it obvious that until the last season, they added all these mysterious elements with no explanation in mind. That’s not GOT, where seeds were cleverly planted for a story planned out in advance.
Sorry for dumping all these random thoughts that have been tumbling in my head…bottom line is I think it very possible that the last major twist, the mysterious finale, relates to Bran’s time travel. Even possibly leaves us in an altered timeline. But even if so I don’t think it has to nullify the rest of the story – which had to happen to get there.
I thought this was answered by the preceding scene, in which LF refers to Tyrion owing a debt to Pod, whilst LF owed a debt to Tyrion…implying that LF paid his debt to Tyrion by giving Pod the freebie.
I heard that explanation somewhere and on rewatch it does seem clear…except there is a later scene where Ros is telling Varys that the girls said Pod’s skill was “difficult to describe”…so is it still a mystery, or were the girls just carrying out the ruse? 🤷♀️
Enharmony1625,
I do too! She is always so much fun. But Colbert ticked me off.. She was telling a story at the end about Ian Glenn having five wrap parties, and she made this funny sound, he interupted, and she didnt get to finish her story. These talk show people need to respect My Queen.
Winterkat,
“Or did the current story get planted as legend in the past?”
——–
Bingo. ✅
If Nik is happy with his character’s end, then so am I. He’s got a good view on things, I find. Ah, it being in N.Ireland though….please don’t konk off too early!
Pretty easily, I should think. Bran almost certainly will learn more about the past – after all, now that he knows that Robert’s Rebellion was fought on false premises, he’s sure to start wondering just why the NK is doing what he is doing – but that in no way demands that Bran go Doctor Who on us.
I have wondered sometimes if we are watching the past or the present. For example, the drawing on the cave that Jon looked at…were they predictions of the future or has this kind of thing happened before and was recorded by survivors in a cave.
Is Bran good or evil? I think he is the Smeagol of this story but not sure if he is good or bad….or neither.
Fair enough, that’s actually in line with what I was trying to say…that at the least, more reveals are likely coming. But sure, maybe they won’t be “the” major twist, and that will come from another character, in the present.
I wasn’t saying that Bran will necessarily go back and do something in the past that alters the timeline, although I think that is a nonzero possibility. It would be really ugly if magic Bran’s contribution makes everything else irrelevant…but I have to believe that any timeline twists/reveals will be handled better than that….where everything happening now with the major characters is still critical and central to the story.
Sorry if I’m talking in circles… I don’t have a theory just a lot of speculative thoughts that don’t all go together. I too was afraid of a “”Lost” ending – but I think that means something different to me than OP. I think there could be a twist related to timeline that still contributes to wrapping up the story, rather than diverting from it.
Could be the scene from Episode 1? They may have filmed the last scene before episode 3.
I’d love to see Bran make it out alive, but I also feel like he has no fair place in the story if they’re gonna go with Cersei as final boss. Bran is tremendously overpowered against human enemies. He’d know every move you’re going to make. He can sit in on her small council meetings. He might even be able to warg the Mountain for all we know. If not, surely there is some animal inside the red keep capable of killing a sleeping woman. The only purpose in having a character that powerful is that’s what it takes to defeat the Night King. After that, what is left for him? It’s not like he can just go back to living a normal human life with human motivations and purposes.
Just from reading the comments here — Wimsey always provides great food for thought! — I have my own speculation. We know, from The Door, that the Children of the Forest made the Night King out of one of the First Men, as a weapon to fight the First Men. The Children then lost control of their weapon, which now seems to have wiped all of them out. (“Welcome to Minos…”)
Perhaps Bran goes back in time and tries to limit the NK’s power, or even to un-make the NK, but in response, the Children ramp the NK up to 11 to ensure he defeats the First Men? Then they lose control of this more-powerful NK, resulting in the World of Westeros as we know it.
Oh my god it’s insane how much stuff they are hitting us with and still no word of the premiere title or snippets from reviews of last night!
Interesting that they continue to build the hype for episode 3, it really does feel that this will be the big grand scale delivery usually reserved for episode 9 in previous seasons. Also regarding Bran, I’m on the fence whether he survives or not but here I assume they were talking about his final filming not the last scene of the season.
The interview with Maise and Sophie was fun, I must say I had no idea Joe Jonas was on set and whilst I probably wouldn’t recognise him if he does get a cameo I really hope they don’t do that again after the flak Ed Sheeren took.
It was 7pm New York last night, there was an earlier article showing the stars arriving and Petra from Watchers got to see it live so likely we will get an article at some point today on the experience.
I’ve seen some stuff on social media about
but assumed that was more speculation/well informed theories rather than a full on leak. Given we are only a week away please everyone don’t post plot leaks we’ve almost made it virtually totally unsullied.