GAME OF THRONES
THE CAST OF GAME OF THRONES LOOK BACK ON EIGHT EPIC YEARS WITH STEPHEN KELLY
The cast look back at eight years of death and intrigue. We’re amazed they’re not just a big pile of twitching, bloodied limbs by now.
The end of Game Of Thrones is the end of an era. not only for television, which it redefined as a blockbuster medium. nor its fans, who have followed every death, twist and battle with obsessive devotion. But its cast, for who the show’s end represents the passing of eight years of work and life. sfX sat down with eight stars to find out how it feels to leave Westeros behind…
sophie turner (sansa stark) I think Game Of Thrones means everything to me. It’s been my adolescence, it’s been half of my life basically, and the only half I can really remember. It’s my family. I had substitute fathers, substitute uncles, substitute brothers. I met my best friend on there. It’s the best acting class I could have ever asked for. It’s been my whole life, and without Game Of Thrones I think I would be a completely different person.
john bradley (samwell Tarly) Game Of Thrones was my entire twenties. It was my first everything. It was my first job, not just in acting; it was my first job in anything. I went straight from university straight into it. So it’s been an entire performative decade of my life in which I’ve made great friends and done work that I’m so proud of, and have had the best bosses in the world. And that’s going to take some coming out of. But for the rest of my life, when I think of my twenties I’m going to think of Game Of Thrones.
isaac hempstead-wright (Bran stark) Game Of Thrones has been my entire childhood. It’s like, “doesn’t everyone grow up on Game Of Thrones?” I think it’s only recently dawned on me just how mental my childhood has been.
hannah murray (Gilly) Sometimes I say that I can’t quite hold the phenomenon that the show is in my head as a thought at the same time as holding in my head the fact that I’m in it. So it’s definitely a little surreal and confusing, and I think it’ll take a long time to process what the show really is.
maisie williams (arya stark) I still struggle to grasp how huge it is. It’s really hard because you’re like, “Well, do I just think that because I’m on it? Is it really that big?” You see all the numbers come in and fans dressing up, but because it’s our entire life, it’s hard to be objective and see it from the outside.
hempstead-wright I think it’s probably in the last year, having actually been done with it, that I realised how big it is. Like, “This is so bizarre. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. The chances of this actually having happened are so slim and unbelievable.” But one moment I think of was season five when I had the season off, because being away from it and having one degree of separation you suddenly see it referenced everywhere and people talking about it everywhere and you yourself get excited about seeing it because you don’t know what’s going to happen. I think that was a real moment where I was like, “This is special. This is extraordinary.”
nikolaj coster-waldau (Jaime Lannister) What does Game Of Thrones mean to me? It means I can pay off my mortgage!