‘It's getting Colder’
We talk to the cast of Game of Thrones, back tomorrow
Game of Thrones fans looking for hints as to what the new season holds in store are getting little in the way of help from Rory McCann.
‘‘It’s getting colder,’’ says the towering 1.98m Scottish actor who plays the fearsome and disfigured Hound, aka Sandor Clegane.
For lovers of the series, which returns to SoHo tomorrow, that’s hardly enlightening but it seems wise not to press too hard, especially when McCann reveals just how close he is in real life to his alter ego.
‘‘The other day, somebody called me before breakfast. The guy went, ‘You’re the Hound,’ and I just went, ‘F... off.’ So maybe I am The Hound,’’ says the 48-year-old Glasgow-born actor when we catch up in London’s upmarket Corinthia Hotel.
The two certainly share a love of solitude. McCann was working as a painter on the Forth Bridge when he got his big break as the Scott’s Porage Oats man, striding kilted and vested through the countryside in a longrunning series of advertisements.
The ad led to him scoring a Scottish Bafta for his role as a wheelchairbound sportsman in the cult comedy The Book Group. A role in the Gerard Butler Viking drama Beowulf And Grendel followed, but when filming ended and work dried up McCann opted to stay behind in Iceland and make his home in a tent, before the onset of winter saw locals persuade him to move into a house.
Home today is a boat. Why? ‘‘I prefer not to be noticed, to be honest, and to disappear,’’ says McCann. ’’That’s what you can do when you sail a boat. You just bugger off.’’
It’s something The Hound tried last season after he was nursed back to health by Brother Ray and was looking to shrug off his murderous past in favour of the quiet life.
‘‘There was a feeling that he was coming to peace with himself,’’ says McCann. ‘‘It only lasted an episode and suddenly he’s got an axe in his hand and he’s chopping people’s heads off, so that was a fleeting thing.
‘‘He was left with the question, ‘Do you want to join the Brotherhood Without Banners and fight this evil that is coming our way? Or do you want to carry on down that road with your axe and your rage?’
‘‘I won’t tell you which path, which walk, I took if you don’t mind. It will be worth the wait.
‘‘Most people realise I think, The Hound, he’s not a bad guy. He’s damaged goods but he’s sometimes morally doing the right thing. You’ve seen in the past The Hound guarding with his life the Stark girls and trying to keep them safe and maybe that’s to do with his past, of being bullied by his big brother (Gregor aka The Mountain) and that kind of thing.’’
While McCann is keeping quiet about season seven, signs point to him throwing in his lot with Jon Snow in the fight against the undead. Fans can certainly expect plenty of action, with McCann admitting filming has left him sore and limping.
‘‘Most of our scenes, if they haven’t been in a blizzard, have been pretend blizzards,’’ he says, adding that studio shots have brought their own set of problems.
‘‘We have been lip reading to each other most of the season because there is a fan going wheeeee and someone throwing snow in my face.’’
Filming might have taken its toll physically, but McCann is no stranger to hard labour. He worked as a lumberjack for two years, went to forestry school and had a tree surgery business until recently.
‘‘I chopped down a tree last week,’’ he says. ‘‘I can cut down a tree better than I can act. I’m more comfortable.’’
But where he is in his element is during some of Game of Thrones’ more bloody and brutal scenes.
‘‘I like the physicality, the training of the fights, that dance,’’ he says. ‘‘The fight between the Hound and Brienne that was one of my favourite times. Just living the dream, it’s fantastic.’’
But if he’s living the dream, another
Julie Eley’s
"I chopped down a tree last week. I can cut down a tree better than I can act. I’m more comfortable." Rory McCann
Game Of Thrones character proved something of a nightmare for her fellow cast members
Gemma Whelan, who plays the Ironborn Yara Greyjoy, trained as a professional dancer but fight scenes left her on the back foot. She was originally given a real axe while filming until it was taken away for the safety of all concerned.
She recalls, ‘‘When you learn the fighting choreography you learn it in a huge tent, by yourself, on a load of mats with no other people around, and do it very slowly and you take it step by step. But one of the really important things that I didn’t get taught was pulling, so that when you go in to hit somebody you don’t actually hit them. You almost do, but then pull.
‘‘And for some reason, I’d either not clocked that or hadn’t been taught it and so I was really whacking people. I was given a rubber axe to start with and then they thought because I was a dancer I was quite co-ordinated, I had a good awareness of space, they gave me a real axe.
‘‘They said, ‘I think you’ll be all right with this because the lads have got protection on and stuff.’ They called ‘action’ and we had one take of this scene in this really confined space with everything going nuts and I nearly killed a Liverpudlian man and they took it off me very quickly and said, ‘It’s not going to work for us’.
‘‘The fight scenes are enormous fun to do, but they need such respect and precision and often you are not given a great deal of training because there is no time.’’
As to who Yara will be fighting for in season seven, Whelan says her character is turning her back on the raping, roving and pillaging traditions of the Iron Islands and throwing her lot in with Daenerys.
‘‘It’s a great testament to her ability to be open minded about how she needs to change in order to move on. She really has a great idea about taking care of the whole, the bigger picture, and not just taking care of herself even though she’s gone about it in her own unique way.’’
Season seven of screens on SoHo, July 17, and streams on Neon.
Game of Thrones