JAMES FAULKNER

(Seasons 6-7) How did you find the levels of secrecy surrounding the show during filming?

The level of secrecy involved approaches paranoia, I would say. I never say anything to anybody because they are so paranoid, you have to sign NDAs all over the place. But I subscribe to the Magic Circle ethos: don’t tell anybody anything, because storytelling is magic. They never issued a call sheet to an actor, because they could be leaked. The thing is, I use a call sheet as an aide memoir; I like to know with whom I’m working, I like to know who’s on the crew, I like to know who’s got the camera, I like to know who’s photographing me, I like to know who my make-up person is, I like to know all these little things. They said, “We never issue a call sheet to the actors,” and I said, “That’s fine, I’ll just call everybody darling.” I got a call sheet.

did you know before season seven started how you were going to go out?

I knew at the beginning of season seven that I was a gonner, yeah. Because they’re so secretive about storylines, you don’t know what’s going on, you only get

your pages. In my pages there was Randyll being barbecued, so I did know at the beginning of season seven. When I did season six, I was only in for one scene, I wasn’t going to do another season. But according to the showrunners Dan and Dave, it turned out that the chairman of HBo’s favourite scene in season six was Randyll being horrible to Sam!

do you have any predictions for how the show will end?

No idea where they’re going to go, but I have one prediction: that fat son of mine is going to kill a White Walker with my sword!