Iceland filming for Game of Thrones season 7 continued this week to a new site, in the southern village of Vík. After being spotted on the country’s glaciers earlier in filming, production has now shifted to a very different location: the famous Black Sand Beach found on Vík’s shores. New photos show the crew at work on site, and fans have also encountered more cast members in the country!
We’ll tuck the photos below, for spoiler reasons.
One lucky fan met both Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) and Joe Dempsie (Gendry) in Iceland yesterday:
A photo posted by Agnieszka Niecikowska (@666fallen_devil) on
Also spotted in the country, yesterday at a hotel in Reykjavik, was Rory McCann aka The Hound:
Most likely all three of these actors are involved in the current shooting in Vík. So what were the actors filming?
This first Instagram user explains they “happened upon the Game of Thrones crew/cast filming scenes. After leaving and going to dinner in Vík, we randomly ran into the crew and cast vans on our way back to Selfoss.”
As you can see clearly in the first pic, there are two boats landing on the beach. Last fall, during filming in Zumaia in Basque Country, we saw Gendry and Davos depart from another, much warmer sort of beach (likely playing Dragonstone) in a boat with a few other characters.
Now they’ve landed in the far North, on a very different beach. So what’s happening? Most likely the characters are landing at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, a seaside castle belong to the Night’s Watch. Previous spoilers tell us that a group of characters are going hunting beyond the Wall, and the fastest route by water would take them up to Eastwatch.
Hodor
It’s always nice to see news on this site, especially when it’s slow going. I’m so excited about the return to Iceland.
Who are those people by the boat, one with a spear? Kind of look like Unsullied but they seem to have white hair and the uniform doesnt really look Unsullied? White walkers? Weird
Definitely Eastwatch, post hunt. What’s curious is that someone spotted Kit in London two days ago so he isn’t there with the others.
Peter Dinklage is done shooting, he was dyeing his hair today for the new Avengers movie
https://instagram.com/p/BPgJFlADnjM/
If he’s done shooting, I highly suspect that’s the case for Missandei and Varys also and the rest of the Targ crew.
What’s really bugging me is I haven’t seen anything about Emilia anywhere. I went on a Twitter rant and some girl said she saw her at the airport in Iceland with Iain Glen but no photo proof.
It’s been almost a week now and no one has any idea where she is …
This Iceland shoot has been very stressful so far …
Jimli,
Great eye, I think you might be right. They look like white walkers.
Irina Stark,
If you look into the comments of that Insta post of Liam Cunningham , the poster has said that she also met Kit , but could not take a photo. So Kit is there in Iceland as well apparently.
Jimli,
It definitely looks like a Walker but I don’t get the shield .. It doesn’t make sense at all. If they’re not Walkers, they’re Unsullied and shouldn’t be there. If they are Walkers, how tf are they at Eastwatch and why is one of them carrying a round shield ? And if none of the above are true, then maybe this isn’t Eastwatch.
I definitely see Liam, next to the red thing in the middle, with his brown garb and grey hair and next to him looks lime what might be Emilia with her wig protection on, she always wears a dark scarf over her wig but this might be a stretch. Also, what’s up with the boats ?
I’m so confused I might as well give up trying, my head’s starting to hurt.
Irina Stark,
Yeah, I’m wary of claimed Emilia sightings without proof since people have lied before. People were claiming they’d met/seen her in Spain before she ever arrived.
People don’t generally bother lying about the supporting cast members though. (I don’t think. I sure hope not, because that would be weird.)
666fallen_devil?
To me they look like Stark soldiers with spears made of dragonglass. But I didn’t bother to zoom in so who knows.
I wonder if we’ll see Eastwatch and Oldtown in the opening intros now that we’re finally done with Essos.
Irina Stark,
If they’re arriving at Eastwatch with boats, as the post says, they wouldn’t need Emilia to film yet.
Kit is still in Iceland.
Are we even sure this particular set is for GOT? Jessica Henwick is also in Iceland atm filming some other show.
Irina Stark,
She’s not there. No matter how hard the fans try to place her in Iceland, they won’t make it true
I mean no offence but wotw and l7r have already mixed up some sets during s7’s filming.
Also I don’t understand fans having this overwhelming need for her to be there. All her dragon stuff is done in the studio anyway, so if she’s part of that expedition at any point, her scenes were filmed in the studio. She wasn’t spotted anywhere near Wolf Hill Quarry during the filming either.
Flayed Potatoes,
That seems a likely explanation. I wonder if the white that we can see on those two guys holding spears is not hair, but some sort of headgear.
We have a black sand beach in my country too…I’m jealous, why won’t they come here 🙁
Anyway, I can’t wait to watch these scenes!
If it is Eastwatch that they’re landing on, my guess is those men with spears and shields are LEAKS
Those boats appear very similar to the ones Jon and Co. rowed off of Dragonstone on, so it makes sense to me that what they’re filming on this beach is the arrival at Eastwatch. Which also explains why Liam is in Iceland this week but he wasn’t last: the leaks say Davos stays at Eastwatch during the actual wight hunt, but he would obviously be needed if they’re filming Jon’s arrival at Eastwatch.
Fortitude season 2 was filmed months ago. Henwick was sharing a photo from filming of that since Fortitude is about to premiere again.
This is definitely GOT.
ghost of winterfell,
Headgear or fake snow? Winter is here after all 😛
I really have no idea.
Jimli,
Looks like WWs to me…
Sue the Fury,
Speaking of which we just saw Joseph Mawle today in a furniture store in London (pinky swear). Tried to get a photo of him with my phone but he’d gone by the time I switched the damn flash off . ??
Gendry and Davos together again makes me so so happy. 😀
Sue the Fury,
I’m actually surprised (and relieved) we don’t have so many people trolling about cast sightings. With a fandom this large, you’d normally expect there to be plenty of trolls claiming to have met X or Y.
I can’t see the photos very clearly I admit, but are we sure this is Eastwatch by the sea? Could it be a shot of Davos and Gendry arriving back at Dragonstone (albeit without Tyrion but there could a number of reasons for that).
The geology looks very similar to the basque coast locations, and it’s not particularly wintry (as we’d expect for EBTS). Did we see any footage of them arriving at DS in September? I can’t recall..
Apollo,
He posted a pic earlier today of the women’s march, so I can believe he’s in London. 🙂
Since we pretty much know the other location was Dragonstone, I think it’s safe to say this place is not. It’s not guaranteed to be Eastwatch (or a nearby landing spot), that’s just a guess. But the sands in Basque Country were very different than this black sand beach, not to mention the geography around the beach, so I don’t think they could use them as the same place. Also, filming in Iceland is difficult with a tough terrain and limited daylight hours. They wouldn’t go there if they didn’t have to- they would simply go back to Basque Country.
Apollo,
It’s not guaranteed to be Eastwatch by any means, but I don’t know why they’d bother filming some of the Dragonstone beach stuff in Iceland when they already picked out a location for that in Spain.
What a beautiful beach – I’m going to look this up, as I have somehow not heard of it!
I don’t get too worried if I don’t see some characters at exactly the same time or location etc – there’s so many scenes within a story and filming schedules that who the heck knows what’ll happen or even be filmed in the same day.
“Well spotted.”
Benioff and Weiss would be crazy not to have The Hound say that to Arya if and when they meet again.
Aah ha ha ha, I love Rory’s alleged reaction.
“You’re the Hound!”
“Well spotted.” [maximum snark here] but the hapless fan goes on. “didn’t seem like one to do selfies with.” Aha hahah!
He’s big, he can be menacing and mean, he’s got his own ideas about lah-di-dah knighthood, though he actually adheres to the core principles. He doesn’t want any “knightly” “celebrity” because he knows it’s all empty. Hypocritical. He just does it. A bit like Jaime by now in the books.
I’m interested to see how the Wall ends at Eastwatch. I’d always assumed that it just stopped abruptly at the water (rather than slowly descending from 700 feet to the ground like the side of a pyramid).
I love seeing these cast members in Iceland, especially Davos, with his down-to-earth good counsel. The North and the rest of the realm need a Davos. The Onion Knight, brave and plain speaking, aware of the big picture, ever the diplomat, just might be able to bring some to their side.
Yah, I’m a huge Davos fan, so take everything with big pinches of salt.
Good to see Gendry as well. I just hope he isn’t brought back from his epic rowing journey only to be killed. Gendry and Arya must meet again. She’ll call him “stupid” and he’ll laugh about it and call her “m’lady” and do his utmost to protect her. Aww… OK, that sounded like fanfic, but the Baratheon bastard and Winterfell lady have history. Maybe something will come out of it. Or maybe not. Oh, well.
Those leaks man…
True.. All of it.
But maybe it’s good on screen?
talvikorppi,
LOL How’s this for a variation: Dany and Jon are romantically walking hand in hand along the beach, playfully running to and fro through the waves, making small talk like lovers in the first bloom do, and all of a sudden a ship appears in the distance, drifting closer and closer to them. Eventually, it arrives and out steps Ser Jorah, miraculously cured. He proudly pulls back his sleeve to show how the greyscale as all but vanished, except for a slight trace of skin damage the pattern of which faintly resembles a leopard’s fur.
To which Dany responds…
😉
Iceland looks stunning – can’t wait to see all of the Iceland-filmed footage on screen. The Beyond the Wall stuff from seasons two and three (and the Vale-set stuff from season four) was amazing.
Hopefully with winter being here, there will be south of the Wall scenes filmed in Iceland for season eight.
Also – I know this seems to be Eastwatch rather than Castle Black, but do we know if there is any chance Dolorous Edd will appear? Like, maybe Jon sends him a raven about his intentions to go beyond the Wall and Edd comes to meet him? Hopeful that we get more of Edd in season seven than perhaps a scene or two with Bran fleeing south of the Wall.
I don’t know how the Wall ends, east or west. It’s no explained in the books. All I know is that GRRM (who’s not very good with numbers) regrets that he made the Wall so unbelievably tall.
Yeah, and as an European, I have a gripe about “feet” or “inches” or any non-metric measurements. Feet divided by three give a close enough approximation in metres, miles divide by five and multiply by eight give kms, Fahrenheit/Celcius is more complex to convert.
GRRM’s “leagues” seem to be about three miles, close enough to five km. But GRRM is deliberately vague about distances, so all is speculative and we readers just don’t know.
There are some decent artist renditions of Eastwatch. This is pretty much how I see it:
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:Eastwatch_by_the_Sea.jpg
Clob,
That looks really good, although I picture the walls of the castle can´t be that strong. Isn´t there a law in Westeros that enforce every castle of the night Watch to be shitty?
Looks gorgeous, I went to a black sand beach in Hawaii before it was spectacular.
We’ll probably never know if Emilia is in Iceland or not she’s too good at hiding, the only way we’ll know is if she posts a pic of herself on IG otherwise we’ll have to wait until the season airs and see if she’s in scenes with no CGI and if she is that means she filmed there.
I am not certain this is an arrival at Eastwatch because of the soldiers. The white is just the shine from their helmets. Obviously there is going to be filming of the arrival at Eastwatch because Liam is there, but I don’t think this is that scene. The lack of ice and snow leads me to think it isn’t Eastwatch as well.
The area they are filming has large basalt columns making cliffs. These would look very interesting as a place where Casterly Rock stands. My theory is, this is unsullied sneaking into CR.
My theory for the black beach is that Jon Snow journeys into the Heart of Winter. White walker lieutenants already use spears and they have shields just in case Jon tries to swing that Valyrian steel sword.
*tin foil hat tip*
ghost of winterfell,
To me it looks like reflection off of a helmet that makes it look like white hair.
That lime green hood does look like its Emilia. I remember seeing that same protective gear in one of the pictures from her meeting Jon in Dragonstone.
… then again, it could be anyone with a lime green parka. It is cold there ❄️
talvikorppi,
I’ve binged watched GOT several times and it’s amazing to hear the characters foreshadowing. I think when Gendry tells Arya “you would be my lady” I think it means that they will end up together ❤️
I wonder if the King in the North (or Queen Daenerys) will legitimize Gendry and make him a Baratheon? If that happens, though, he might have a claim to the Iron Throne and challenge Dany.
There has to be some good reason for Gendry to be coming back. He must have some role to play still in the story besides being another soldier to fight the White Walkers and wights. Right?
Corbyn Stark,
That’s the loser formerly known as AngryGOTFan. He’s also a neo-Nazi scumbag. Anyway, he gets off on the attention so I think it’s best to not link to him in general.
Corbyn Stark,
He looks good LOL. I always pictured him as an ugly, frustrated hater.
Is Kristofer on the same beach?
Totally agree with this. But what the heck is he talking about?
https://twitter.com/mttlxndr/status/822861365475942402
This guy says he talked to Kit yesterday and that he was filming in the south near Vik.
Most likely, it is Jon and Co’s arrival at Eastwatch that they are filming.
Ser Bergh,
I used to think AngryGoTFan was some kind of performance art comedy twitter account. Was like a really great parody of over-the-top book purists. Like, the kind of stuff they really say, but dialled up to a ridiculous level.
Then I found out he was real (and as someone else said above, a Nazi) and it stopped being funny.
didi,
Me too!!