Filming/Locations/News

Sophie Turner and more return to Belfast, and a Game of Thrones location is confirmed!

Posted on by Sue the Fury

dark hedges

We’ve rounded up the newest Game of Thrones cast sightings today, and we have an update for you all about a season 7 filming location.

Lately, signs have been popping up indicating something might be afoot soon at the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland. As we’ve previously reported, the Hedges will be closed October 13th through the 16th but it wasn’t clear whether it was for GoT or not.

Today, IrishThrones‘ local sources came through and confirmed for them that Game of Thrones will indeed be returning to the famous tree-lined lane that stands in for the Kingsroad on the show.

Though the Dark Hedges are a popular site for tourism, don’t bet on getting close to shooting. The area will be shut down for filming, the farmland surrounding the lane is privately owned, and will very likely be heavily guarded during the GoT shooting.

Now comes the speculation time: who will be traveling through those hedges just outside of King’s Landing? Really there’s no way to tell. Let’s just pick a name out of the hat and go with…how about Gendry, just because.

In cast sightings news, we have several main cast members in the Belfast area this week. In addition to reports of Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington in town, one fan visiting the Paint Hall mentions she met “Jaime Lannister” (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) today. Elsewhere, Alfie Allen has turned up posing with a fan in Belfast at a hotel:

And with a few others yesterday at a restaurant in the city:

Another fan was lucky enough to meet Sophie Turner and Aidan Gillen both today!

Silver & Gold ? @sophiet

A photo posted by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀?Andini? (@andiniria) on

As you can see Sophie is still blonde. At this point, I think we have to accept that she’ll be wearing a wig to play Sansa in season 7. I just hope they set aside a nice chunk of the budget for top of the line lace fronts, because the transition from real hair to wigs after six seasons might be very distracting.

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Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

64 Comments

  3. I hope it’s a good wig.

    I hate that my last memory of Margaery is her crappy wig lol.

    The Kingsroad location is beautiful.

  7. Lucky fans! I don’t know what I’d even say if I met one of the actors. I’d probably just cry and hug Alfie haha! They all seem so down to Earth and easy to approach though.

    My vote is Gendry too for Hedges. Wishful thinking.

  10. Kargaryen:
    HUGE spoiler

    And on Twitter earlier she hinted at fighting White Walkers. Coincidence that these photos get released the same day? Something big is going down!

  12. Maggie:
    I wonder with whom is Nikolaj shooting with?

    Has to be KL stuff, so most likely Lena.

    Has Jerome Flynn (Bronn) been spotted yet?

  19. Jack Bauer 24: Has to be KL stuff, so most likely Lena.

    Has Jerome Flynn (Bronn) been spotted yet?

    Not really, every inside scene is shot Paint Hall and there isn’t any mention of Lena by the girl.

  20. Emilia’s new wig looks top dollar so I’m guessing Sophie got a similarly high quality wig this year.

    And those Maisie pics… OmG!!

  21. Maggie: Not really, every inside scene is shot Paint Hall and there isn’t any mention of Lena by the girl.

    I thought Lena’s been spotted?

  22. I really didn’t care much about Sansa/Jon reunion because they didn’t seem to be close, didn’t have any scene only the two before etc. But I am excited about any other Stark reunion that could happen this season.

  23. Just curious. Considering actors/actresses aren’t allowed to cut their hair and so on, are they allowed to change its color? Looking at Sophie’s situation I think the answer is yes.

  25. Apollo:
    Emilia’s new wig looks top dollar so I’m guessing Sophie got a similarly high quality wig this year.

    And those Maisie pics… OmG!!

    I just hope they make Emilia’s wig lighter/silver, like it was back in S1.

  27. Sean C.,

    Didn’t I say that pap had many more pics up his sleeve? This is wayyy bigger than any Kit pics (although he probably wasn’t aware of this) ?

  29. Morgoth,

    I expect that her original contract would have required her to dye it, but if it was causing problems for her hair to keep doing it, there’d be an opt-out (or the producers would have waived it, seeing as they aren’t assholes).

  30. restoresoff,

    lol I’m not surprised, they always sideline Maisie in WoTW. Every other actor here says anything on a magazine and it’s big news. Maisie wins an award and they don’t even bother finding out what it is for to redact the title.

  32. Kargaryen: I just hope they make Emilia’s wig lighter/silver, like it was back in S1.

    I feel the same way. It’s a small thing but I’m not a fan of the more blonde tone wig. Anyone could be blonde but she’s a Targaryen… it should look white or silver and stand out from the rest.

  34. Alfie is posting pictures from Belfast on his Instagram, same Nathalie Emmanuel.

    Maisie pics are huge thing!!

  35. Mel,

    I’m very amused by how Maisie fans claim Sophie’s favored and how Sophie fans claim Maisie’s favored.

    Get over it. I don’t give a crap. News is news.

  37. Please keep Maisie pic discussion to the new post- those are pretty big spoilers and this isn’t really a spoiler post. Thanks!

  38. Sean C.,

    It’s indeed strange because Sophie’s hair look dyed anyway (I know she is blond but what I see on her pictures doesn’t look like a natural blond at least to me). So, maybe she will have to wear the wig for a reason? Maybe something happens to Sansa’s hair? Say, if she gets sick, her hair may start to fall out or something…
    Or I am just going crazy and overthinking everything.

  39. Inga:
    Sean C.,

    It’s indeed strange because Sophie’s hair look dyed anyway (I know she is blond but what I see on her pictures doesn’t look like a natural blond at least to me). So, maybe she will have to wear the wig for a reason? Maybe something happens to Sansa’s hair? Say, if she gets sick, her hair may start to fall out or something…
    Or I am just going crazy and overthinking everything.

    Yeah that blonde on her does not look natural. Something is going on here. Kinda lame she’s going the wig route instead of dying it red.

  40. Alfie (one of the ‘others’ spotted around town) is looking good these days. Hopefully that translates to his character and we see a stronger Theon this season no matter what goes down!

  41. I’ve noticed that too. Sophie’s mentioned a lot more, and she seems to get more headlines. FWIW, usually, you see “Sophie and Maisie” in that order. But I doubt it’s due to bias or an unconscious preference for beauty over talent. (Truth to tell, often the Sophie-Sansa discussion is about frivolous things anyway, like hair, clothes, appearance, romance–none of which apply much to Maisie-Arya. Especially Arya.) I suspect the main reason is that WOTW has only been around a season or two, during which time Sansa was given a much more integral role in the overall Game than Arya, whose storyline was interesting but seemingly peripheral. And she regularly interacted only with No Ones. Had WOTW been around in Seasons 2-4, when Arya sparked off of major acting talent and showed wit, quick-thinking, physicality, leadership, and courage, surely it would have been the other way round. Perhaps this season will even things out.

  42. Inga,

    She dyed it platinum blonde for Huntsville and presumably will just let it gradually fade back to its natural blonde shade.

  43. Pigeon,

    Alfie (one of the ‘others’ spotted around town) is looking good these days.

    Ha…I was just saying Alfie’s in the “and more” section.

  44. I thought I had read an article a while ago saying the Dark Hedges had been destroyed by a storm?

  47. Inga:
    LatrineDiggerBrian,

    I remember that too, but apparently the damage was not so bad. And it will be quite symbolic to see the change around the King’s Road.

    They lost two of the great Elm trees, they were used to fashion the GOT themed pub doors in various pubs in NI.

  48. Inga,

    No, if she’s just wearing a wig its likely due to the damage the dye has been doing to her hair as has been mentioned here previously…Sometimes the simplest explanation is the actual explanation 😉

  49. oh my goodness. Hair dye in 2016 doesn’t cause your hair to fall out or damage it. It takes about an hour to dye hair, they could dye it in the morning, dry it, style it and she’d be ready to go by 10am.

  56. The GoT cast members are good sports and very gracious – they’re always taking pictures with fans. The “Silver & Gold” one with Sophie is funny. 🙂

  57. Flora Linden,

    The woman with Sophie and Aidan is Andini Ria, a fashion blogger who is on acquaintance terms with Sophie. She posts photos of them together every so often.

  59. Sophie just dyed her hair really light and it is harder to get the red to take on the lighter blondes. I have natural red hair and used to get highlights so when I would decide to go back to red the color didn’t take fully on the parts that were highlighted. The strands were considerably lighter. Red is very hard to get to take and take well without looking super fake. And hair dye does damage your hair as does styling. I haven’t dyed my hair in a long time and rarely use heat styling on it anymore and the difference is amazing honestly! I’m pretty sure they had to touch up her hair before each filming because it needed to be vibrant so yep it’s an awful lot of coloring done per season. I don’t blame her for going the wig route honestly. Hopefully it isn’t huge lol!

  61. Kargaryen,

    I think at least when Dany goes to the snow it will look really light. Her hair looked so good In the house of the undying in Qarth visions but it looks more blonde in sunny conditions.

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