Get the inside scoop on five littleknown GoT truths from the cast,
Impress the most ardent fans with these behind-the-scenes truths shared by the cast
As Season 6 of Game of Thrones begins Sunday, obviously the most pressing question is whether a certain character is still alive, but here are five little known truths about the show based on interviews conducted with the cast in London. Beware, there are spoilers ahead.
The Pope and the High Sparrow
When the 68-year-old Welsh icon Jonathan Pryce was cast in 2014 as religious cult figure the High Sparrow, he was inspired to a degree by present-day Catholic leader Pope Francis.
“Francis’s election coincided with the High Sparrow’s appearance,” Pryce said. “And there was Francis going around, very publicly administering to the poor and acknowledging that he was a man of the people, so he wanted to do away with all the finery and the trappings of the Vatican. . . . That’s how High Sparrow started; he wanted to be seen as a man of the people. He walks barefoot, he dresses in rags, he appears not to wash very often — a bit of a mistake, but there you go. And on the other hand, unlike Pope Francis, who is pleading for understanding of people’s tics and phobias, he’s dishing out punishments in a quite violent and aggressive way. So he’s a great dichotomy.”
Forgiveness for Melisandre
Carice van Houten is accustomed to hatred on social media because of her role as priestess Melisandre, particularly after convincing King Stannis Baratheon to burn his own daughter alive in Season 5, but she notes GoT fans will let even the most heinous bygones be bygones if she can bring back beloved hero Jon Snow. “I had so many people texting me on Twitter: “Die bitch, die, when are you gonna die? Die die die!” van Houten said. “Then, when Jon Snow died, (they said), ‘We’ll forgive you if you bring Jon Snow back!’ ” Agame of math Arguably the most impressive of all the series’ feats is the use of limited airtime — 10 episodes at approximately 50 minutes apiece — to breathe life into a main cast that numbers in the dozens. “When David (Benioff ) and Daniel (Weiss) start a season . . . what they’re faced with first and foremost is a huge mathematical quandary,” says John Bradley, a.k.a. Samwell Tarly.
“Every single one of these characters needs to have a satisfying arc. They have to start at one place and finish at another place, and go through a journey throughout the season that has peaks and troughs, and they learn something and they’re a different person in Episode 10 than they were in Episode1. . . The Game of Thrones, writing has to be very economical . . . Everything has to progress, even if it is just two characters talking — which it is, quite a lot — that is designed to establish something about them. So something you thought was a piece of decorative information actually turns out to be vital.”
Tywin the Younger
Although his psychotic son Ramsay Bolton gets most of the hate, Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) is quite the piece of work himself: a power-mad, whip-smart leader who’d switch allegiances in an eye’s blink if it meant pushing him even slightly up the pecking order.
If you’re wondering why GoT never needed to show House Lannister patriarch Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) in his youth, it’s because they have his essence in Roose. “Incredibly strong parallels,” McElhatton says. “That’s (Roose’s) absolute modus operandi; it’s all about power and that’s the way he’s totally made up: as a cold, political figure who’ll do anything for the upkeep and survival of House Bolton. And he’s played a very, very smart game. You love at a cost in Westeros, really. And he can dispense with anybody.”
Blind acting the blind
Maisie Williams has grown up on the series as Arya Stark, but the 18-yearold had different challenges in Season 6, not only in portraying a character struck blind but in effectively acting without sight.
“I had to wear contact lenses that covered my whole eye and made them look murky and cloudy, and also made my vision murky and cloudy,” Williams said. “I could see lights, but not really any shapes or anything like that. Pretending to be blind when you actually can’t see anything is a lot easier than pretending to be blind with your eyes on full display. But I did my fair share of both, because Arya gets very physical (in Season 6) and does a lot of stunts, and so doing that without my vision was very, very difficult. We had a separate set of lenses that had little peepholes in, for safety for myself and other people. I didn’t fall over, but it will become clear when you watch the sequences there are a few close calls where I nearly smacked some people in the head.”