Game of Thrones season 8 is now less than 20 days away and both media and fan frenzy is reaching new heights. But there’s one thing at least we can be sure of, thanks to Nikolaj-Coster Waldau. Jaime Lannister gets a really beautiful resolution to all his trials by the end of the show – and also a paw.
In an interview with the Men’s Health Magazine, the Danish actor would have us believe, with a straight face, that Jaime’s maimed right hand finally grows back. But there’s a twist. We’ll let you hear it straight from the lion’s mouth:
“He grows out his arm … but not in the way you think …. It comes out as a claw. No—it’s a paw.”
Claw or paw, chances are this isn’t true. But he did reveal some other details about his last scene in another recent interview:
“I had a great last scene. It was absolutely beautiful. It was the perfect way to end, obviously I can’t tell you what the scene was … It wasn’t the final scene (of the series), but it was close to the end. It was shot at a beautiful location.”
That isn’t much, to be honest. But it does give us more room to speculate. For example, by ‘really beautiful’ location does he mean some new place in the North? Also, if the scene wasn’t the last scene of the series, does that mean Jaime doesn’t survive the season? Questions, questions.
Jaime Lannister has always been a character of many layers, and the Danish actor has played him with finesse and depth. In his words,
“I find Jamie so interesting … The core of this guy is that he does what he does in the name of love. He’s a complex guy.”
And that is the sort of emotional honesty that Waldau has tried to bring to his portrayal of Jaime’s many questionable decisions; for example his relationship with twin sister Cersei Lannister. In his words, despite the taboo,
“It’s one of the few true love stories in Game of Thrones—Jaime is dedicated to this woman.”
Will Jaime’s fate bring him back to Cersei again, this time as her doom? Many fans have theorized Maggy the Mage’s ‘Valonquar’ prophecy about Cersei’s death refers to Jaime, as ‘Valonquar’ means ‘little brother’ in High Valyrian and Jaime is, in fact, a few minutes younger than Cersei. Well, Waldau certainly isn’t revealing anything. He’d rather talk about what happened behind the camera.
“At this point, I had seen quite a lot of colleagues wrap, so I had seen a lot of tears, beautiful speeches, and I knew what to expect. I didn’t expect to be emotional, so I don’t know what happened, I had allergy, there was something in my eye.” Waldau smiles.
Chances are, we will have things in our eyes too when the season gets to the point.
Game of Thrones was the biggest fantastical drama of the past decade. The show had the biggest budget and record viewership of all times. Scientists even researched to find out why the HBO epic was so successful. The series was recently crowned the best TV show of the 21st century by the readers of Digital Spy. The magazine got together several members of the cast of the show to commemorate the show’s success. The show’s cast revealed surprising details about the show. Joe Dempsie, who played Gendry Baratheon on the series, recalled his casting experience.
Dempsie told Digital Spy, “When they were originally casting for the pilot… I actually auditioned for the role of Jon Snow. It didn’t get very far and then when the series was commissioned. I auditioned for another two roles, before eventually being cast as Gendry. It just seemed like the creators had identified people that they wanted to work with. And then it was just a case of which piece of the jigsaw you fitted.”
Joe Dempsie was phenomenal as Gendry Baratheon on Game of Thrones. Would you have liked to see him play a different character? What about Jon Snow? Talk to us in the comments below!
There are times when life puts us in situations when we think about changing our path. Game of Thrones star Jerome Flynn had to face something similar before he was cast into the show. His life changed forever ever since. In an interview with Digital Spy, Flynn revealed he was about to quit acting altogether before the show. (There are some others who almost quit after getting rejected for the series.)
Jerome said, “I hadn’t been on screen for about 10 years. I was thinking I might leave the business behind. But I’d also poured all my savings into renovating an old farm estate in Wales. My agent called – there’s this thing called Game of Thrones, American, medieval. I was like, ‘Oh god really, that sounds dodgy’. And I had a lot of resistance going down to London to audition.”
“I opened up a kitchen cabinet onto my eye and gave myself a kind of black eye. I didn’t look at the script, but I put my hair back and suddenly felt like ‘Oh, I could be a badass’. They just saw the face and saw that and thought, ‘Ooh yeah, he’s a bit of a killer’. I think it helped also because Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff] said they had no idea about my past, about Robson and Jerome or Soldier.”
“Somebody sent me some blog when I got cast, from English fans of the books… and then when they found I got cast, some were desperately upset. One guy couldn’t believe that Bronn could be played by me. And one guy actually said, ‘This is the worst day of my life’… they just couldn’t put those two, Bronn and Jerome, together.”
What do you think of Jerome Flynn’s Bronn? Tell us in the comments below!
The Long Night of 2020 has passed, but the effects are still lingering. The world is trying to get back on its feet with new hopes in the new year 2021. There are many surprises we have yet to face in the new year, but it seems like the Game of Thrones cast already has some secrets for us in store. Richard Brake, who played The Night King in season 4 and 5, talked to Digital Spy recently. He revealed he almost didn’t play the character at one point, and he’s thankful for that.
He revealed, “I had auditioned a couple of times before for the show in other roles. I got pretty close at one point. But I’m so grateful I didn’t get it… [that character] was nowhere near as important as I had thought when I auditioned. He did an episode or two and then died.”
“A few months later my agent called me and said, ‘They want to see you. Nina wants to see you again for Game of Thrones, but this time the character is in full prosthetics, he doesn’t speak, and he’s only going to be on screen for about a minute.”
He continued, “I thought, ‘What the f**k? [laughs] This is what it’s come to?’ ‘But he’ll be important at some point,’ she said. So I went in. They had me pretend to pick up a sword. I had to pretend to pick up a baby… and touch it. That was about it. But I had no idea that he was the king of the White Walkers, or that he would be eventually called the Night King.”
Would you have liked to see Brake in some other role? Tell us in the comments below!
