SFX

JOHN BRADLEY

SAMWELL TARLY

- richard edwards

(Season 1-present) Have you been surprised at sam’s character arc?

I’ve been constantly surprised. What you first see about him is what he tells Jon about what he believes about himself, so he believes he’s a coward. He believes he’s no good. He believes he’s weak and can’t achieve anything. And over the course of the show you actually see how untrue that is – about how much he can achieve if he sets his mind to it. He’s not a coward. He’s got a healthy contempt for rules, and he will stand up to the rules if he believes they’re getting in the way of somebody’s happiness or bravery. And he’s fallen in love, he’s taken the responsibi­lity of parenthood and through a series of clever political manipulati­ons, he’s managed to get himself to the one place in the world where he feels truly happy, with the people he loves most. At the start, not only did the audience not believe he could do that – he probably didn’t believe he could do that himself.

do you think parallels with real-world politics have got stronger as the show’s gone on?

I think people have always looked to drama and fiction if there’s any kind of political unrest. It’s the same way that Shakespear­e’s often been restaged as contempora­ry politics. That’s because people gain some sense of reassuranc­e from the fact that, as scared as we are now, this has always been happening, and there’s always been people with a greed for power – narcissist­s and egomaniacs. It may feel scary because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but it just makes you think, “How many times has this type of character bubbled to the surface before, and we’ve been scared before.” We’ve been okay.

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