The final season of Game Of Thrones is very nearly upon us, and fans are SO READY!
How will they get through the final month of waiting for the return of the biggest show on TV? How about the biggest SPOILER-FREE tease-fest of all time?
Related: Sophie Turner & Maisie Williams Talk Kissing On Set
Entertainment Weekly visited the set during the much hyped final battle and spoke to cast and crew alike — who gave as much as they could without revealing ANY plot details.
(Except Euron. That guy may have given away something big…)
Get all the GOT you can handle about The Characters, The Battle, and the super secret Finale (below)!
THE CHARACTERS
First up, each cast member is given one brief quote to tease their character’s story in the final season…
The Starks
Kit Harington on Jon Snow’s parentage reveal:
“The end of the world might be coming soon, but at least he’s in love with somebody and knows who he is — and then comes a sledgehammer.”
Sophie Turner on Sansa Stark’s new position as Lady of Winterfell:
“Sansa this season is very much enjoying becoming a leader in her own right, and this year there are certain challenges by people who threaten that.”
Maisie Williams on Arya Stark’s conflicting motivations:
“There’s this split with Arya between trying to be who she wants to be — getting back to that naiveté and innocence with her family — and her unfinished business.”
Isaac Hempstead-Wright on Brandon Stark getting more comfortable with his powers:
“We see a slightly wiser Bran this year, who’s less like robot overload.”
The Lannisters
Peter Dinklage on Tyrion Lannister being the bridge between warring factions:
“He’s trying to figure out who he really is in this storm of negotiations.”
Lena Headey on Cersei Lannister trying to hold on to her throne:
“As usual with Cersei, she’s trapped in a web of her own making.”
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on Jaime Lannister finally leaving Cersei’s side:
“He’s choosing to do what he believes is right.”
The Targaryens (Team Dany)
Emilia Clarke on the final leg of Daenerys Targaryen’s journey to the throne:
“There’s so much she’s seen and witnessed and been through and lost and suffered and hurt. She’s been working for this her entire existence.”
Nathalie Emmanuel on Missandei’s burgeoning romance:
“[Grey Worm is] the thing she wants to live for. They’ve got this lovely bond that is worth fighting for.”
Jacob Anderson on Grey Worm’s odds:
“The chances of anyone surviving are remote, and they’re aware of that.”
Conleth Hill on Varys’ continued schemes:
“He is effective, as always.”
Iain Glen on Ser Jorah Mormont’s last fight:
“He’s been given the greatest challenges around Dany. He’ll be tested like never before.”
THE OTHERS
Carice van Houten on what Melisandre is up to:
“She is definitely on a mission.”
John Bradley on Samwell Tarly bearing the burden of telling Jon the truth:
“Sam is really feeling the responsibility of this information. But he knows Jon would rather hear this from Sam than anybody else.”
Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth) on the finale in general:
“This is what people have been waiting for over the years.”
Pilou Asbaek on Euron Greyjoy’s new motive [SPOILERS?]:
“He wants to become the king of the Seven Kingdoms, yet he’s also blackmailing Cersei.”
Alfie Allen on Theon Greyjoy’s uncertain future:
“There are choices to be made, and a coming together.”
Gwendoline Christie on Brienne of Tarth earning her place:
“This is the season where Brienne’s gender is really no longer an issue. She’s treated as an equal by all.”
Rory McCann on whether The Hound (and the audience) will get a Cleganebowl:
“There will be a chance of squaring up to his brother and facing those demons.”
THE BATTLE
The centerpiece of season 8 is the huge battle you’ve been waiting the entire show for — the end of the fight between the living and the dead.
To create the epic Battle Of Winterfell, the cast and crew had to endure a grueling filming schedule the production team dubbed “The Long Night.”
Director Miguel Sapochnik (Hardhome, The Battle Of The Bastards) is responsible for bringing it to life — and put his foot down they needed to do it right even if it meant a struggle:
“We built this massive new part of Winterfell and originally thought, ‘We’ll film this part here and this part there,’ and basically broke it down into so many pieces it would be shot like a Marvel movie, with never any flow or improvisation. Even on Star Wars, they build certain parts of the set and then add huge elements of green screen. And that makes sense. There’s an efficiency to that. But I turned to the producers and said, ‘I don’t want to do 11 weeks of night shoots and no one else does. But if we don’t we’re going to lose what makes Game of Thrones cool and that is that it feels real.'”
And so HBO agreed to the schedule. 11 weeks of night shoots which left the cast and crew completely drained. Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont) says:
“It was the most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones. A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake in the midday you’re still so spent you can’t really do anything, and then you’re back. You have no life outside it. You have an absolute f**ked bunch of actors. But without getting too method about it, on screen it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world.”
The battle required some Thrones stars to do things they’s never done before.
John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) played a supporting role in the Battle of Castle Black, but this time he’s in the mix! And apparently he got so good at fighting, he just wasn’t, well, being Sam:
“When doing these huge fight sequences, you get carried away sometimes. You want to make yourself look as good as possible. Miguel said to me, ‘I know that you want to show you’re quite good at this. But remember your character. Sam’s not that good at this. You have to play him because that’s what’s going to be truthful. So stop being so good!'”
Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) reminds viewers of a pretty shocking fact — she’s never been a part of ANY of the big battles in the show’s history:
“I skip the battle every year, which is bizarre since Arya’s the one who’s been training the most. This is my first taste of it. And I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.”
But it sounds like Arya has a huge role in this one. Sapochnik called her a YEAR before filming to tell her to begin her fight training because her scenes were “going to be really hard.”
“And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ But nothing can prepare you for how physically draining it is. It’s night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn’t stop. You can’t get sick, and you have to look out for yourself because there’s so much to do that nobody else can do… there are moments you’re just broken as a human and just want to cry.”
But she kept going of course. Because…
It wasn’t just the schedule which got rearranged. The Winterfell sets were rebuilt to be a monstrous labyrinth almost as big as a real castle.
Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm) explains:
“The Winterfell set is unlike anything I’ve seen in my life. It’s not like most sets you walk through a door and you see [a wood panel] and equipment. You can walk into rooms and cross into tunnels and find yourself in another part of the castle. It’s really immersive. Especially when there is haze and snow and people running around, you can get genuinely lost. There were a few moments where I momentarily forgot it wasn’t real, which is bizarre.”
Everything culminates in the most hyped battle in TV history — and maybe beyond. Supposedly there is no single battle in cinema history longer than this one, not even the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, which was one producers studied closely for inspiration.
Writer/producer Bryan Cogman probably gives the biggest tease, saying:
“What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie. This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. David and Dan [wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”
THE FINALE
As for the super duper secret final episode, how it all wraps up?
No one will give ANY specifics on that. But showrunner David Benioff does admit he and partner Dan Weiss are worried people will be disappointed despite how much work they’ve put into it:
“From the beginning we’ve talked about how the show would end. A good story isn’t a good story if you have a bad ending. Of course we worry.”
But Weiss says they know it’s impossible to please every fan:
“We want people to love it. It matters a lot to us. We’ve spent 11 years doing this. We also know no matter what we do, even if it’s the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions. There is no version where everybody says, ‘I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this’ — that’s an impossible reality that doesn’t exist. I’m hoping for the Breaking Bad [finale] argument where it’s like, ‘Is that an A or an A+?'”
We’ll give David Nutter, who directed more of season eight than anyone else — three of the final six episodes — the final tease:
“There are a lot of firsts in these episodes. There’s the funniest sequence I’ve ever shot on this show, the most emotional and compelling scene I’ve ever shot, and there’s one scene where there’s so many [major characters] together it feels like you’re watching a superhero movie.”
Dang.
To go along with their huge feature, Entertainment Weekly is also releasing 16 (!!!) different collector’s covers. Get your first look at them all (below)!
[Image via Game Of Thrones/YouTube.]
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