Thursday, July 21, 2016

John Bradley (Sam Tarly) Talks His Favorite Costar and Friendships

Is Samwell Tarly the storyteller in the A Song of Ice and Fire trilogy? Ever since his arrival in the heavenly place that is the Citadel library, and the shock of seeing the Astrolabes from the opening credits floating high above, that’s been a going off-season theory. Even if Sam isn’t the one telling the story from the safety of the future, or writing it down for posterity, and a Game of Thrones-ian twist on the Hamilton theme of “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” the actor behind the character, John Bradley, is a fine story teller himself, and a wonderful interview. This week he took those skills to Reddit, where he participated in their ongoing “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) series.

Though some some of Bradley’s answers to fan questions were exactly as you would expect, such as he finds fame nice, but his life before fame was just a different sort of nice, some of his answers were surprising. Sam’s character has spent nearly all of his time in the series up at The Wall, only finally travelling south for Season 6. When asked about his favorite co-star though, he didn’t say Kit Harington, who plays his best bud Jon Snow, or Owen Teale, the hated Ser Alliser, or even long term, old school BBC actor Peter Vaughan, who played Maester Aemon. No, his favorite actor he;s worked with was….  Stephen Dillane.

keep-reading-samwell-tarly-stannis-baratheon-quote

That’s right. The stiff man behind the even stiffer Stannis Baratheon.

“I got to do one scene with Stephen Dillane, who isn’t just one of my favorite on the shows, he’s just one of my favorite actors period. That day was a privilege and an education.”

To viewers, that might seem odd, but landing Dillane was a bit of a coup for the show when it happened back in Season 2. Dillane is the kind of man int he business known as a “actor’s actor,” someone who is all about the craft, and dedicated to being on stage more than they are being successful, or famous. Dillane famously admitted after he was killed off last year that he really only did this show to make ends meet, and that television, green screens and CGI are really not his cup of tea. That’s the sort of actor someone like Bradley wouldn’t get to work with very often, and I’m not surprised he took full advantage to learn as much as he could.

As for other surprises, when asked what role he’d love to take on in a movie, Bradley’s response was to choose one from the ongoing superhero craze, and not a hero either.

I’d really love to have a go at playing The Penguin in a Batman movie because I think it’d be so interesting to try and do a psychologically valid Penguin. He lives so much in the comic book world, it would be nice to try and find a way to give him some credibility and justification and make him a presence in the real world.

Jon and Sam--Official HBO

As for friendships with the cast, when asked if it as a myth, he said it certainly was not–the cast of Game of Thrones are all surprisingly close, considering that they don’t always film together, because of the bubble they’re in. And about Kit Harington:

He’s more attractive in real life. If you’ve ever smelled him you’ll know what I mean.

Maybe that’s why Bradley picks “The Battle of the Bastards” as his favorite episode so far. Loyal to the end.


Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/07/21/john-bradley-sam-tarly-talks-his-favorite-costar-and-friendships/

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