Nikolaj Coster-Waldau opens up to the Huffington Post in a new interview, telling fans what he really thinks about Jaime and Cersei’s season 7 break-up, nimbly dodging spoilers, and talking about the difficult season 8 filming schedule.
“I think if it hadn’t have been the last season, people would’ve just collapsed,” the actor tells HuffPost. “We wouldn’t have made it. I mean, at one point the crew had 52 nights in one go in Northern Ireland. Just unheard of.”
The actor is complimentary of the final season as written though. “I wrote the writers when I finished reading and just said, ‘I don’t think you could’ve done a better job at finishing this story.’ To me, it was very satisfying but also very surprising and all the things that I was hoping for. It still made sense. It wasn’t like one of those where the killer is suddenly revealed in the last act and you go, ‘Oh! I didn’t see that coming.’ Here, they’ve done a really, really good job.”
The actor also has nothing but love for the cast and crew of Game of Thrones, who spent an enormous amount of time together in the show’s home base in Northern Ireland this year.
“And whether we’ve been in scenes together or not, almost all of the season was shot in or around Belfast. So for the first time in all these years, the whole cast was, more or less, in town together the whole time. It was just a lot of fun to hang out and spend time together and appreciate what we’ve experienced and how lucky we are to be a part of this show. Yes, the success of the show is great, but it’s really also meeting all these people in Belfast ― it’s the same crew from Season 1 to the end. It’s a special thing. And someone said we’ve had no assholes, which is quite extraordinary, really. You look at a workplace of more than 1,000 people, and there are no assholes.”
The interview covers a wide variety of topics, and in particular tackles Jaime’s painful break-up with his sister-lover last season. In a way, the actor had as many questions as some fans did.
“In my mind, after Season 6 ― which ends with Jaime coming back [to King’s Landing] and seeing Cersei on the throne ― I imagined a lot of other things happening…Dan and David have always played the long game the way they stretch things out, so when you get the payoff it really pays off. And we had a lot of almost heated discussions about how I was going to get to that point [with Cersei]. Like, [I asked], ‘Why don’t they discuss in depth the death of their son [Tommen]?’ And they told me, ‘Well they do, but we don’t see that.’ So all those things. It’s so much fun and difficult, and it’s also very frustrating. But then when you finally find your way, it’s very rewarding. For me, anyway.
“What I’m saying though, is I thought that end scene in Season 7 would have happened before. For me, playing Jaime, when he gets to that point, it really was ‘finally!’ Finally he says no. Finally he stands up to her. It was such a brutal scene because they’re playing two different games: Cersei’s playing the game of thrones and Jaime’s playing the honest game of survival, and trying to accommodate both his sister and his brother.”
To read the rest, visit The Huffington Post!
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It’s not much but you know what? WE’LL TAKE IT! Tonight HBO unveiled a new “Coming Soon” video with snippets of upcoming series and new seasons of their shows, including Game of Thrones! Coming in 2019, in case we had started to doubt.
The video includes a fair bit of Game of Thrones footage but most of it is actually from season 7. There is however a quick shot at the 1:10 mark of Jon and Sansa that looks to be new.
So we’ve got a somber Stark family hug, which gives us something to speculate on! Finallllllllllly!
The rest of the video features shots of Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, Arya, Gendry, and Davos from season 7 scenes. The quick blur of shots in the rest of the video unfortunately don’t hold anything interesting but watch it again and feel the hype!
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Exactly one month ago HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys claimed the last season of Game of Thrones would premiere in the “first half” of 2019. Many of us hoped this would mean a return to a premiere date in April… yet, if visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer is to be believed, many of us were wrong! In happier news, Bloys had also said Jane Goldman’s Long Night prequel pilot would hopefully “go into production in early 2019”, and Bauer not only corroborates this statement but delivers a concrete month!
In a conversation with the Huffington Post about the show’s 22 Emmy nominations in 2018, Bauer goes into a much more revealing direction, claiming that “in two years” they will “be eligible for the Season 8 [VFX] work,” which they have just begun working on.
If Bauer is correct and the eighth season won’t be eligible at the Emmys until 2020, that means most of the season won’t have aired until after the 2019 deadline: May 31. Apparently, Bauer can’t swear this is the case, as “so much of it comes down to timing and all that stuff; the situation changes every week”, but he can confirm his VFX team have nothing but Game of Thrones scheduled until May. In his own words: “We’re going to be toiling away on Season 8 until May of 2019, so it’s eight or nine months away.”
In past years, VFX work was still being finished up while the season had already started airing, with only days to spare, so season eight may yet premiere sometime in May or early June and jibe with Bloys’s claim that the show would air during the “first half” of next year. However, if you were hoping for March or April, or even February as some suggested, Joe Bauer’s schedule for the VFX team appears to dash all hopes of that.
Do you need something to help this bitter medicine go down? Thankfully, Bauer offers this spoonful of sugar: Goldman’s spin-off pilot should begin production pretty much as expected. “The prequel is starting to shoot in February, at least the pilot,” he tells Huffington Post. It may not feel like season eight is getting any closer, but we should have casting and production news for the Game of Thrones prequel soon enough!
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Ommegang Brewery has announced that the fourth and final beer in their Royal Reserve Collection will launch this November with an appropriately wintery name: King in the North!
The beer is a reference, of course, to the current King in the North, Jon Snow. Ommegang chose a barrel-aged imperial stout for their tribute to the solemn leader.
It pours jet black with a thick tan head (whether that was a deliberate joke about Jon remains to be seen). Aromas of roasted malt, coffee, and chocolate blend with those of oak, bourbon, and vanilla. The flavor is rich and full with notes of chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and roasted malt up front followed by smooth bourbon and a hint of oak. The finish is thick and chewy with oatmeal creaminess, and pleasant lingering roast. King in the North pairs well with funky aged cheeses, rich dark meats and decadent desserts. It also makes a great dessert on its own.
“There was only one character with whom we could end the Royal Reserve Collection,” said Brewery Ommegang president, Doug Campbell. “I don’t think we’re alone in our hopes for Jon Snow.
“We expect this one to bring our fans to their feet to toast the King in the North!” said Jeff Peters, vice president of licensing & retail at HBO.
The King in the North will be available for purchase at the brewery and at retail as of November 23 aka Black Friday (in case you needed something else to remind you of Jon’s solo stand against the Bolton army at the Battle of the Bastards), on draft and in 750ml bottles. The suggested retail price per bottle is $12.99.
Thus the Royal Reserve Collection comes to a close. If you’ve also enjoyed the other beers in Ommegang’s collection Hand of the Queen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Mother of Dragons, be sure to check out the one-of-a-kind gift pack just in time for the holidays, which will feature one 12-ounce bottle of each of the four Royal Reserve Collection beers and a collectible Game of Thrones glass. The suggested retail price for a gift pack is $24.99.
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In the game of thrones, you win or you swipe left.
This autumn, HBO is launching Reigns: Game of Thrones, a game in which you get to make the momentous, high-stakes decision of a Westerosi leader in a Tinder-styled format in which you swipe right for yes and swipe left for no, all to the accompaniment of Ramin Djawadi’s gorgeous score.
The game will extend beyond the HBO® series and explore possible futures for key characters as seen through the fiery visions of Red Priestess, Melisandre. Players will alternate between playing as Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Sansa Stark (among others) as they explore alternate routes and storylines the characters on the show never got to try. What would happen if Cersei decided to rebuild the Sept of Baelor, for example, or if Jaime Lannister married Sansa?
Swipe left or right to choose characters to claim the Iron Throne while carefully navigating the complex relationships and hostile factions of the Seven Kingdoms.
Reigns will launch on the App Store, Google Play, and Steam for $3.99 in October 2018. You can preorder the game and learn more at ReignsGame.com.
What alternate path would you most like to take a character down? Tell us below.
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Arriving on our small screen on September 17, the 2018 Emmys are in full swing, as is the road leading up to them. With 22 nominations, Game of Thrones, ever the reliable juggernaut, leads the competition. While we could of course just sit idly by, our thumbs were meant for much than frivolous wagging. So, I took it upon myself to do something to wrestle us out of this restless no-news period. Between Akash of the Andals and me, we have viewed many or even most of the major Emmy nominees, ever the avid viewers we so clearly are. However, something was missing; we needed someone who hadn’t seen most of the nominees. It was this that led me to recruit the assistance of Young Mr. Hodor himself, Sam Coleman.
In this video you’ll see two large heads and one small head. That small head is me! I’m the technologically un-savvy goon who doesn’t know how to make his own face as large as the others in the conversation -It’s how I keep myself from getting a big head!
Anyway, the meat and potatoes here is that the Emmys are a primarily American awards show, so Sam had not seen most of these shows, making this all the more fun! At the end of the day, our hopes will bear no effect on the outcome of the awards show, so I’ll say best of luck to the nominees, spill an extra pint of mead, and enjoy the video!
Who are your favorites to win? Who do you think is the most likely to be accurate in his predictions? Least likely?
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The game is afoot … or it will be, next spring.
At this year’s Gamescon (Europe’s biggest game conference), the games developer and publisher Yoozoo Games announced that they have joined forces with HBO, Warner Brothers and Interactive Entertainment to develop an officially licensed Game of Thrones browser game.
According to BusinessWire.com, the game will take place in Westeros and begin shortly after the death of Eddard Stark. Players will “take on the role of an ambitious Westeros[i] lord” determined to bring peace to the continent … albeit most likely through battle. Players will get to create their own House, manage their territory, design their own castle, train an army, travel through Westeros history, team up with friends or else engage in player vs. player battles and (perhaps most wish-fulfillingly of all) interact with Game of Thrones characters and try to recruit them to their cause.
“Game of Thrones Winter is Coming is the embodiment of our globalization strategy: we pursue the world’s top resources and partners and keep high-quality standards for the development and publishing of games,” said Liu Wangqin, the Vice President of Yoozoo and head of GTarcade. “Yoozoo values the culture and reputation of Game of Thrones. Through in-depth research and industry-leading technology we aim to bring fans of the series a game that will live up to their expectations.”
A worldwide pre-registration event is currently open for Game of Thrones Winter is Coming where players can gain access to rewards upon the game’s release in the spring of 2019.
Are you excited for Game of Thrones Winter is Coming? And if you were to create your own House for your character, what would your House Words and sigil be? Tell us below.
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With the eighth season of Game of Thrones slowly approaching (probably just… half a year left, folks!), a few actors have begun to tease the final part of this story more explicitly. In a new interview, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is the latest to do so, promising that the “massive jigsaw puzzle” that is Game of Thrones will make sense in the end.
“I read it, and I wrote [showrunners] Dan and David and said I don’t think they could have done a better job,” Coster-Waldau reveals to The Wrap, concerning season eight. “I’ve spent so many years working on this and been guessing and trying to figure out how this will end, and when I read it, some of the parts of it I’d get, and other parts of it were just completely shocking and surprising. And it wasn’t [like] those horrible [shows] where it’s a murder mystery and at the very last minute you find out it doesn’t make sense,” the actor clarifies. “Here all the pieces fit into this massive jigsaw puzzle.”
Of course, he doesn’t put any of these spoilery pieces together for us, but he does talk about what went on behind the scenes: “It’s been wonderful to do this last season. Almost all of it was shot in Belfast, so that means even though you haven’t been in the same scenes with [the entire cast], you’ve seen a lot more people,” so there were “a lot of parties and get-togethers”, some of which we reported on throughout this summer.
As for Jaime and his—to say the least—tumultous relationship with his sister Cersei, Nikolaj gives us a rundown of where we left his character: “He thought he finally had her complete trust, and the fact that she revealed she’d made quite different plans with Greyjoy, that Qyburn is now her closest ally — I think it shocked him … They have a future, potentially another shot at having a child, and she’s willing to risk everything for something that just doesn’t make sense to him. And on top of that, they just gave their word to the world, to everyone … And I think he sees her for a second the way the rest of the world sees her. And it shocked him. [There’s] also the fact that for a second she seemed as if she was ready to have the Mountain kill him — I think it broke his heart.”
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(Photo by Matt Sayles /Invision/AP, File)
In the realm of Game of Thrones, news has been rather quiet during this final off-season. While we anxiously wait for the first teaser trailer to appear (likely waiting for several months, if I’m guessing correctly), there are some high-profile soundbites floating our way, courtesy of our Con of Thrones friend, Ashaya. Ash, one of the creators and hosts of the History of Westeros podcast was fortunate to attend World Con, where she was even more fortunate to attend an interview with the man who created Westeros himself, George R. R. Martin. Speaking in an interview with John Picacio, we gained many ‘The Winds of Winter’ spoilers a fascinating insight into the mind of fantasy’s most popular author. Since we had Ash on hand to live tweet us through the event, let’s dive in and see what did George had to say!
Kicking off #worldcon2018 with @JohnPicacio's interview with @GRRMspeaking tonight! @WesterosHistory & I will be tweeting throughout.
— Ash
(@MeereeneseKnot) August 15, 2018
And boy did she ever – we are so lucky to have her tweets to recap the events!
One of the incentives for #grrm to publish #FireandBlood earlier than planned was the upcoming #GameofThrones successor series. #asoiaf
— Ash
As we reported a while ago, ‘Fire and Blood’ a massive tome of Targaryen history is due on November 20th. I’m the guy who brought a history textbook as reading material to camp one year, so we’ll see if fake history shakes out as interestingly as real history for nerds like me. I guess George had to speed up his writing process on that.
GRRM's advice to all young writers: don't take on debt. #grrm
— Ash
For those aspiring writers out there, remember to keep an eye on your coffers…
HBO made decisions that made #GameofThrones catch up more quickly than planned (cutting content), and so #GRRM thought he'd have another two years to get #TWOW out ahead of them. #asoiaf
— Ash
Remember how ‘A Dance with Dragons’ came out right after season 1, and we’ve seen no follow-up book since? Turns out, George was not expecting the pace of the show to move as briskly as it did.
Some people who have died in the show will never die in the books. #asoiaf #GameOfThrones #grrm
— Ash
Does Stannis yet live?!?!?! Who will come to Gondor’s aid?!
On the future of GOT’s successor show(s?), we have quite a bit of what the teens refer to as hot goss:
1.
Goldman's #TheLongNight show is set further in the past than any of the other shows (no surprise there). #asoiaf #GameofThrones #grrm
— Ash
2.
Some of the #GameofThrones successor shows are based on #FireandBlood material, some are based on a single sentence in #twoiaf. #asoiaf #grrm
— Ash
3.
#GRRM has pitched HBO three #asoiaf successor show concepts (beyond the 5 we know about), none of which are in development. #GameOfThrones
— Ash
I believe it was George Takei who introduced the words ‘Oh My!’ to English vocabulary. What are the other three premises? What sentences inspired entire shows? How much further back could we possibly go? Maybe we’re talking a real who came first, the White Walker or the Dunk Egg scenario?
Turns out George relates heavily to the season 2 debate over the nature of power:
1.
Power (creative control) is the hardest thing to get in Hollywood. #grrm #GameOfThrones
— Ash
2.
#GRRM: Can I have script approval? Studio: how about a million dollars? GRRM: no, can I have script approval? Studio: how about 2 million and part of the gross? #GameofThrones
— Ash
“Power is a curious thing. It’s a trick – a shadow on the wall. And those damn Hollywood tycoons never relent” – Varys, season 2
My absolute favorite quote of George’s is this biting remark:
None of it really exists, so like the version that you like. #asoiaf #GameofThrones #grrm
— Ash
People have debated for centuries whether ‘the movie’ or ‘the book’ is better. I say, who cares? They are different and different is good. Things don’t have to be the same. I will die on this hill shouting that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my favorite Harry Potter book but also my least favorite movie because the movie tried too hard to be the same as the book, and did so very badly. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is my second favorite Harry Potter book and most favorite movie because of its effort to be the same story…in a DIFFERENT way. I read and loved the A Song of Ice and Fire books several years before Game of Thrones existed. I have watched and obsessed over Game of Thrones, same as all of you have. I love and appreciate their differences; they are two sides of the same coin. There are things I love about each and a few things I dislike about each. But never forget just how lucky we are to have both in our lives.
Anyway – a HUGE thank you to Ash for live tweeting what I’m sure was an incredibly exciting event. There are many more tweets from the interview, where George delves into his work outside GOT. I encourage you to head over and check it out. In the meantime, thanks again, Ash!!!
Post interview squad. pic.twitter.com/t7azdgb7aw
— Ash
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Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei.
We’ve all been bracing for an intense final season of Game of Thrones, given not only the shocking end to Season 7 last year but also the ultimate showdown between the living and the dead that the series has spent years building up to. Comments from multiple cast members and directors over the several months haven’t done anything to tamp down that expectation, and now, even the soft-spoken Missandei is assuring us that “people will have their mind blown when they watch the final [season].”
“I think what we can expect from the final season of [Game of Thrones] is just a real push,” Nathalie Emmanuel recently told India news service IANS. “Like in the last couple of seasons, we have seen the pace of the show increase with the stakes getting higher and higher. There are so many storylines that have to come to conclusion. We have to play them out, so the pace of the show is continuing on that sense.”
“All of the things that you expect from ‘Game of Thrones’, but at the same time since it is the last one, the emotions will be so much more intense,” she said. “I am very excited for people to see it. We have been working so hard on it.”
Emmanuel also confirmed that while the filming on Season 8 is finished, “It took us longer to shoot this season than any of the seasons.” Naturally, that has led to an even longer gap between seasons seven and eight — and while the waiting is enough to try the patience of the Seven, we’ll be here to keep you updated with news in the meantime.
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By Dave Sheinin (5/10/2018)
It would have been January 1945. It would have been somewhere in Manhattan, out where the Irish people gathered. It must have been cold out, driving Joe Geheran and Mary Ann Moroney indoors, into the same building and eventually the same room, maybe the same corner of a bar or nook of a kitchen, where they must have been overtaken by the same feeling and where one thing, as one thing is known to do, must have led to another.
They must have found somewhere to be alone.
They may have known each other already but probably didn’t — he, a dapper, 41-year-old, well-known man about town; she, a 37-year-old domestic to a wealthy family; both of them Irish immigrants. He was married, without children. She would marry just over a year later and quickly start a family with her new husband.
But on this night in January 1945, as fate would have it, Mary Ann Moroney got pregnant. Joe Geheran was the father.
This secret, dark and potentially explosive, may have belonged to both of them or just to Mary Ann because it isn’t clear whether Joe ever knew he would be a father. But regardless of whom it belonged to, the secret survived the subsequent birth of a baby boy Oct. 15, 1945, in a hospital on the east side of Manhattan, and it survived the baby’s adoption two days later. It made it to the grave with both Mary Ann and Joe, and it survived, as well, the life span of the daughter Mary Ann would have in 1946 and go on to raise.
And the secret would survive the first 72 years of that baby boy’s life, even as the world came to know and revere the man he grew into.
Continue reading at New York Times.
Veteran Game of Thrones directors Jeremy Podeswa and Alan Taylor spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about their experience bringing certain key moments of season seven to life.
The first major upset of season seven brought up in the interview was Viserion’s heartbreaking death scene, which Taylor directed. He acknowledged his track record for killing off beloved characters (Ned Stark, of course, but also Julius Caesar on Rome and Bill Hickok on Deadwood) but pointed out that there’s something especially upsetting about killing off an animal.
“I knew that killing a dragon was going to be like killing a puppy,” he said, then laughed. “It’s an emotional moment when you kill a character that’s flesh and blood and human, but killing a creature that’s beloved the way dragons are? I knew it would have impact.”
Podeswa, for his part, had the not-so-tiny job of overseeing the destruction of the Wall.
“When you’re reading the script, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God. They’re really going there,'” he recalled. “Then it was like, ‘Wow. This is an enormous, spectacular sequence. How are we going to pull it off?’ There’s a big question of mine about how much is real, how much is not real, how much is visual effects. You’re so well-supported on a show like this with such great people that I knew I wouldn’t be doing it alone.”
Podeswa also addressed the “epic” twist that Jon and Daenerys are, in fact, nephew and aunt … which is revealed to the audience while the two are having sex.
“For us, it was very important that there be a question about what could possibly happen after this moment,” he said. “In the script, it described the fact that they were lovemaking, but it didn’t go into great detail in terms of what was going on between them in that moment.
“We built in a moment between Kit and Emilia where they stopped and looked into each other’s eyes. The intention from my point of view, and their point of view, too, is that they’re driven by passion into this. They don’t even fully understand what it’s all about and what the consequences of it are.”
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