Uncharted territory
On set and off book with the massive Game Of Thrones: Season 6…
The situation,” says Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, “is disturbing.” He’s just emerged from filming in a dungeon beneath Shane’s Castle, a 14th-Century ruin in County Antrim. In that dungeon were his sister Cersei (Lena Headey), her personal Doctor Frankenstein Qyburn (Anton Lesser) and the monster he has created on her behalf, a6’ 9” armour-clad colossus known in the series as The Mountain, played by Norwegian strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. For Game Of Thrones: Season 6, The Mountain has been modified and improved by Qyburn’s magic. That’s why Coster-Waldau and his character Jaime Lannister find the situation disturbing – Qyburn has created some kind of unstoppable hybrid monster.
‘Unstoppable hybrid monster’ is an apt description for Game Of Thrones. Over five series HBO’s fantasy epic has grown to gargantuan proportions, not only in viewing figures but in scope. This year, three units have been filming simultaneously, in effect making three shows at a time and combining them into one. One battle scene took a month to shoot. The budgets are at movie-blockbuster level.
“It’s insane,” says Coster-Waldau, removing his cloak and leaning back on a crenellated wall overlooking a lake, before giving an example of just how big season six is. “Jaime goes on a trip to the Riverlands where they built the castle of Riverrun,” he reveals. “Our crew built this whole massive drawbridge – just for an episode and a half. Even on a big, big movie you’d go, ‘Surely there must be another way to do this.’ But they did it. And it blew my mind!”
Season six marks another landmark for the show – it will be the first time that it has gone entirely ‘off book’, going beyond the source material of George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series. For the first time, fans of the show have absolutely no idea what is going to happen – which for a show famous for they-didn’t-just-do-that-did-they? storyline whammies, adds a whole new layer of unpredictability.
“This is the second phase of the story,” teases writer/supervising producer Bryan Cogman. “Season five left all of our main characters in very vulnerable, dangerous and dark positions – those that survived. This is about picking up the pieces. This is the aftermath.”
Scheme queen
Lena Headey’s Cersei Lannister was one of those who survived season five, but only just. In a standout set-piece that was every bit as powerful as some of the blood-and-thunder battle scenes, Cersei ended the season being paraded naked through the streets of King’s Landing. Pelted with insults and excrement, she carried out this so-called Walk of Shame in atonement for her (admittedly many) sins. This season, needless to say, she comes out fighting.
“She’s at her scheming best,” says Headey, sheltering from the rain under a makeshift gazebo. “Everything that’s thrown at her, every fuck-up she does, she learns from and gets stronger. She is driven by fury – it’s pretty intense this year. And she’s got Frankenstein as her right-hand man!” She points at Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who’s chowing down on a sandwich. “It’s a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole at this point. I feel she’s jumped in with Qyburn wholesale, and whatever happens she’s just going to hustle and take charge. I really can’t say anything, but it genuinely is the most ferocious and exciting that Game Of Thrones has been.”
Need to Snow
That “can’t say anything” is a constant refrain – it’s a struggle to get access to the Game Of Thrones set and when you do, the cast and crew are more wary of spoilers than ever. In part this is because the show has gone off book, but also because it relies so much on surprise for its effect. “The reason we’re protective,” says Cogman, “is we’d love the audience to experience the highs and lows and the thrills as the characters are experiencing them.” He pauses. “You know what it is? It’s the feeling we got when we first read the books. We didn’t have the Red Wedding spoiled for us because only a few people at that time knew about it. You have that incredible rush of emotion. I threw the book across the room. We want that for our audience.”
The throw-the-remote-control-across-theroom-spoiler-of-spoilers is, of course, whether or not Jon Snow (Kit Harington) will be returning. At the close of last season he lay in a pool of blood, and Harington has said his character is dead. But he was spotted in Belfast last year and the rumour mill hasn’t stopped whirring since. And so just before Lounge leaves Shane’s Castle, we sneak up to Nikolaj CosterWaldau and ask him the biggest question of all. “I could tell you. But I’d have to kill you,” he laughs. And as he’s got a three-foot broadsword clanking by his side, we decide it’s probably not worth the scoop...
ETA | 25 April Game Of Thrones: Season 6 begins on Sky Atlantic this month.