We’re almost there, everyone — just five days to go until the Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones and the moment when we all lose our minds for six weeks. With it being so close, yet feeling so very far away, allow us to take your mind off the wait with some more Thrones news!
EW’s James Hibberd recently sat down with John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) for one of the last interviews the long-time Game of Thrones reporter and our favorite Citadel acolyte will take part in before the series comes to an end.
“If you have to inhabit a different skin for six months of every year and then you’re told you’re never going to play that part again, it’s weird,” Bradley said. “When I got to the end of his story, I got the sense I was abandoning Sam. Because every year, you grow with your character. I wish I could stay with him a bit longer.”
Bradley said that getting the scripts for Season 8 was “the start of the goodbye process,” but that he thinks “the audience is going to be delighted” with how the series ends.
“It’s never been a show that gives people exactly what they think they want,” he said. “If you asked any fan of the show going into season 3, ‘Do you want Robb Stark and Catelyn Stark to be killed at a wedding?’ They’d say, ‘No! We don’t want that, we’re behind them, we want them to succeed.’ Then it happens and we feel all those emotions and they realized that’s what we needed. … We’ve never given the audience what they want, but we give them what they need — a nutritional dramatic experience. Not just the chips and chocolate. We challenge them and hurt them too.”
Yikes…that doesn’t bode well for our favorites as we head into Season 8, but to be fair, I don’t think any of us are expecting an ending that’s not somehow hurtful.
Bradley was also part of an article from Vulture in which cast members remembered the scenes they’re most proud of, with his choice being one you might not expect: getting his ass kicked defending Gilly at Castle Black.
“On the show, a lot of the violence is very choreographed and quite graceful and quite balletic. There can be something quite savagely beautiful about it,” he said. “But what we tried to get in that scene, and Miguel [Sapochnik, the director] was very strong on, is this should be violence at its ugliest. Often, in fiction, violence isn’t necessarily treated with enough of a gut reaction. You can get desensitized to it. We wanted to make it look like when Sam gets beaten up, you’re seeing a human being get beaten up. People in films seem to be able to get punched 30 times and carry on like nothing’s happened! This felt like a real examination of how damaging even everyday violence can be.”
The entire article is a great read, with cast members from Emilia Clarke to Pilou Asbaek choosing their favorite scenes, and they range from surprising (Isaac Hempstead-Wright‘s favorite was when Meera Reed leaves Winterfell after a bitter goodbye to Bran) to the “Well, that makes sense” (Gwendoline Christie naming Brienne of Tarth‘s fight with the Hound as hers).
Of course, you can’t talk about Sam without talking about his best friend, Jon Snow (Kit Harington). Harington recently revealed in an interview with news.com.au that, in order to get past the awkward nature of having to film intimate scenes with Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) — the two are close friends, along with Harington’s wife Rose Leslie — he would try to lighten the mood with a prank.
“I’d pretend to throw up when we had to kiss,” Harington said. “As actors, it’s our job but there’s an element of weirdness to it when you’re having dinner, the three of you, and someone asks, ‘How was your scene today?’ But I mean, Emilia is wonderful, I love her, and I’ve loved working with her. And really, it’s not hard to have to kiss her. But I did like pretending it was.”
He also noted that getting to cut his signature long, curly Jon Snow locks after eight long years was a freeing experience that helped him move past the role for good.
“I recently cut my hair off and the hairdresser said, ‘Do you want it? Do you want to sell it?’ he said. “I said, ‘No, no, that would be weird.’ I left Jon Snow on the floor.”
“I’d pretend to throw up when we had to kiss”. I’ll bet she felt awesome about that, lmao.
Hodor!
“I left Jon Snow on the floor.”
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
I know we all feel Sam is going to make it (right?) but he kind of gives away that he definitely does in this quote: “When I got to the end of his story, I got the sense I was abandoning Sam. Because every year, you grow with your character. I wish I could stay with him a bit longer.” If Sam dies, he’s not abandoning him and he also can’t stay with him a bit longer. Not a huge revelation, but it is slightly spoilery.
Che,
I felt that way when I read it too. Maybe he knows that everyone believes he’s one of the most likely to live.
Uh yeah, no duh!! I’m sure he wasn’t heading into scenes like, “yuck, I have to make out with Emilia!” I imagine he’d like Rose to think that he doesn’t enjoy it… 😉
I did stay up to watch Kit on with Seth last night. It’s not the haircut that’s so alarming, it’s the loss of the beard. It looks so weird with not even stubble. He did comment about having to shave entirely for SNL and didn’t seem to care for the smooth little boy look either.
Maybe I am reading too much into this but Nikolai was on Ellen and she asked him to summarize the show in 30 seconds for someone who hasn’t seen it, and he said “its about a boy who is trying to find his way in life and then gets pushed out the window blabla”
it was all about Bran. Interesting
“a nutritional dramatic experience. Not just the chips and chocolate.”
What a priceless quote! That’s going to have to go into our descriptive arsenal alongside “high thread-count scenes.”
The throw up bit was in preparation for season 8 when Jon discovers that he slept with his auntie.
And then Jaime will be “you make me proud bro”.
Sam is not gonna die. He is the one who is gonna write A Song of Ice and Fire.
Hairdresser: What do you want me to do with this?
Kit: Wear it. Burn it. Whatever you want.
He should’ve let someone auction it off one lock at a time for some favorite charity. I mean, I can see him finding strangers’ obsession with his hair kind of creepy, but just sweeping it up and throwing it away seems wasteful. I’ll bet the hairdresser saved some!
You just know the hairdresser kept it….
I love listening to John talk about Sam. He really does love that character.
Clob,
I think that he will stay alive and after war with white walkers as main maester he will write a book “game of throne”.
Seems that a lot of people think this will be the ending.
Clob,
What I found most interesting was the part where he confirmed that they filmed him during the read-through. Yay!
https://youtu.be/LopfeCDUpug?t=373
MatiZ815,
Burn it so it doesn’t come back to haunt ya lol
I thought that was said! With word of the doc after the show is done I’ve been hoping of some footage during that.
I hope they made a Jon Snow wig…!! :O
I mean, I’d buy it…:-}
I can’t wait to watch his reactions at the read through! I hope we get the chance to see it.
It would be amusing to give some of Kit’s luxuriant locks to Carice, noting that ‘There is power in the hair of kings.’
So another tease of a bittersweet ending without formally stating it. Someone big is going to die before the end and my money is on Dany.
If Sam dies I feel it will be the biggest shock so far in the series, almost everyone expects him to live.