(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
David Benioff and Dan Weiss began the process of adapting George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books over six years ago, and have been running the show ever since. During the 2016 Sun Valley Writer’s Conference, the pair stopped by a show called Dialogue, which runs on Idaho’s public access station. The two gave a lengthy, thoughtful interview about the origins of the show, the criticisms it’s received, where it’s going, and much more. The guys are articulate and contemplative. It’s a good watch. Check it out below.
Benioff and Weiss didn’t know anything about television production when they took on this challenge, but that ended up being an advantage. “If we had known what we would have to know to do this well, I think the intimidation factor may have gotten the best of us,” Weiss says.
But we were just filled with excitement over the prospect. We knew that done right George’s books could really be something tremendous and we just were so excited we just kinda barreled into this situation without really knowing what we didn’t know is that there were unknown unknowns.
Thank goodness for that.
Some highlights from Part 1:
- David Benioff once worked as a DJ on KMTM in Moose, Wyoming. On the midnight shift. Huh.
- Benioff once wrote a thesis on Samuel Beckett. The host brings up a quotes from him. “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” They admit that they basically ripped that line off for Davos’ line in “Oathbreaker.” After Jon has come back from the dead, he tells Davos he failed, to which Davos replied, “Good. Now go fail again.”
- Weiss read 1000 pages of ASOIAF in two days. Yeesh.
- When the host brings up “sexposition,” Weiss says that they haven’t done that in a long time. It’s true that the casual nudity rate on the show has gone down over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, they don’t talk about what brought about that change.
- Benioff on the criticism that Game of Thrones depicts too much rape: “I fundamentally disagree. I think the idea that depicting a brutal crime indicates endorsement of that crime is ridiculous.” Weiss: “It’s arguable that sanitizing representations of violence is more harmful than more graphic depictions of violence that make you feel the way violence probably should make you feel, which is uncomfortable and horrified.”
- The showrunners wholeheartedly deny that they made changes to Sansa’s story, or to the story more generally, after the uproar following Sansa’s rape by Ramsay Bolton in Season 5. Basically, they point out that the show is planned out far ahead of time, and that they knew where characters like Sansa and Cersei were going in Season 6 before Season 5 even began shooting.
- On the end of the show: “We know enough about it now that we could write the final episode today if we had to.”
- Benioff and Weiss are well aware that Game of Thrones isn’t the title of Martin’s entire series, but thought that title was “the best descriptor of the entire show” because of the way so many characters try to play each other.
- Benioff doesn’t get spoilers. “Not only is it like looking at the last page of a book and learning what happened, but it’s then ripping out that page and putting it on the library wall so that you can ruin it for everybody.”
- Benioff and Weiss have an interesting writing process. One of them writes the first half, the next writes the second half, and then they switch and edit each other.
In the second part of the interview, the showrunners discuss the show’s elaborate special effects, how the show has helped the economies of the places where it’s filmed, and what’s next for the pair.
Thank you, Dialogue!
Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/11/17/david-benioff-dan-weiss-game-of-thrones/
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