Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

by James Hibberd

  MICHAEL LOMBARDO (former HBO programming president): The biggest fear we had was whether the dragons would be credible. If they seemed cartoony or corny, we were fucked. But they worked, and people had an emotional response to them. So the good news was they worked. The bad news was we’d have to keep delivering at that level.

  ALAN TAYLOR: Probably the thing I was most proud of was the aftermath. [The dragon reveal] in the novel takes place at night. I wanted to shoot it at dawn and got into a fight with David and Dan about it. I wanted to be able to pull back to see the landscape, and we couldn’t afford to light that much landscape at night. They let me do it. I’m really happy with the shots that bring Jorah in and we do the slow reveal and the magic of the dragons, showing people awakening to this new world, then being able to drop back to a truly vast landscape. And what [composer] Ramin Djawadi does with the music there, so the last thing you hear is the dragons’ cry.

  The last line of the first book was “And for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.” So that was a wonderful way to end. We know this world, and now it’s been launched into whole new territory and you can’t wait for next season.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fresh Blood

  Game of Thrones premiered to 2.2 million viewers on April 17, 2011. The viewership was considered modest for such a costly show—HBO’s short-lived Rome had opened to 3.8 million viewers.

  Early reviews were somewhat mixed as well, with the nation’s two most prestigious newspapers panning the drama after being sent advance copies of the first six episodes. The New York Times scathingly dismissed Thrones as “a lot of confusion in the name of no larger or really relevant idea beyond sketchily fleshed-out notions that war is ugly, families are insidious and power is hot,” and expressed skepticism that female viewers would watch such “boy fiction,” while The Washington Post dubbed Thrones a “groggy slog.”

  Others saw the show’s promise straightaway, such as Variety’s Brian Lowry (“[Thrones] grabs the audience by the throat like an exceptionally loyal wolf”), Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall (“deposits me in a world I never expected to visit and doesn’t leave me feeling stranded and adrift, but eager to immerse myself”), and The Hollywood Reporter’s Tim Goodman (“The ambition is immense, the fantasy world exceptionally well-conceived, the writing and acting elevating the entire series . . . the successful pairing of an acclaimed collection of fantasy books with a television series that illuminates and expands what’s on the page”).

  And then, the show’s second episode delivered another 2.2 million viewers.

  GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (author, co–executive producer): We got okay ratings. But the second week, the ratings stayed level. I was in New York and had lunch with [HBO CEO] Richard Plepler at his club. He said, “The show is going to last ten years.” I said, “There’s only been two episodes, and the ratings are good, not great, so how do you know that?” He’s all: “There’s no drop-off. The second episode always goes down; the only question is by how much. This is level, and it’s going to start going up.” And that’s exactly what happened.

  HBO quickly green-lit another season of ten episodes based on Martin’s second A Song of Ice and Fire novel, A Clash of Kings. The book chronicles Westeros in chaos as contenders for the Iron Throne vied for power, while across the Narrow Sea a nomadic Daenerys struggled to gain supporters. The new season required adding a rather enormous number of major roles to the show’s already large cast, such as noble knight Brienne of Tarth, King Robert’s uncompromising brother Stannis, principled smuggler Ser Davos, murderous sorceress Melisandre, Wildling warriors Ygritte and Tormund Giantsbane, Stark bannerman Roose Bolton, captive Wildling Gilly, treacherous lord Walder Frey, wily yet benevolent social climber Margaery Tyrell, and Margaery’s sly grandmother Olenna Tyrell (first introduced in season three).

  There was also new behind-the-scenes talent, most notably producer Bernadette “Bernie” Caulfield, who had previously worked on shows such as The X-Files and Big Love. Though Caulfield rarely received press attention (and certainly never courted it), Benioff and Weiss frequently credited her, along with fellow producer Christopher Newman, with keeping the show’s railyards of trains running on time and for solving a seemingly never-ending stream of logistical problems.

  The season also added a new filming location, Croatia, which would redefine the look of King’s Landing and Essos. Croatia effectively replaced Morocco and Malta as the show’s Mediterranean location of choice. As with selecting Northern Ireland, the producers picked a cost-efficient country with a relatively recent war-torn past that didn’t feel like it was already overexposed by other Hollywood productions.

  In particular, the Old Town area of Dubrovnik would be frequently used. Considered one of the world’s most perfectly preserved medieval cities, the seaside tourist attraction served as an ideal Westeros doppelgänger. Its construction dates back to the seventh century, and its eighty-foot stone walls were built in the tenth century. From the air, Old Town’s red-tiled roofs set against the Adriatic Sea very closely resemble King’s Landing in the show (absent certain Thrones landmarks such as the imperial Red Keep and the grand Sept of Baelor).

  As season-two pre-production and casting got under way, Thrones’ ratings kept climbing and peaked with three million viewers watching the finale. Combined with repeat airings and DVR playback, the first season averaged around eight million viewers per episode. With the show edging into the territory of being a hit, the new cast members felt a type of pressure that the actors on the show’s first season had managed to avoid.

  LIAM CUNNINGHAM (Davos Seaworth): I first met Dan and David a year before [while auditioning] for a different character. I’ve never told anyone this, but it was for Ser Jorah. Within five pages you know if a script is going in the trash can or not, and these I couldn’t put down. It’s like for an actor you finally found what you’re looking for. They told my agent they were “going a different direction,” which is the nice way of saying you didn’t get the job. They added, “We have some more characters coming in next season,” and I’m thinking, “Yeah, sure, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’” But they put me on the list to come in the following year. By then, everybody in the UK wanted Game of Thrones on their résumé. It was a badge of honor, a mission everybody wanted to be on.

  CARICE VAN HOUTEN (Melisandre): I’d never played a character like this before. In [the Netherlands] I played light comedies and funny parts. This was so serious. I completely fucked up my lines in the audition. I was over-conscious and intimidated by the whole thing. The show was already sort of a hit, and it was an uncreative room with five men in there. I had to audition with the “burning of the gods on the beach” speech, which is this big, epic scene. It’s hard to portray that in a tiny Belfast office. But then they had me do another scene with Davos in a boat that was much more subtle. I think that saved me.

  LIAM CUNNINGHAM: Carice and I did a movie together in South Africa, Black Butterflies, and then it wasn’t long after we went up for our two roles. Both of us recommended the other one for the part, and both of us got them. The bizarre thing was we played lovers in the film and it was quite liberal. There was a lot of horizontal folk dancing in the movie, and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. She’s wonderful to work with, and we looked after each other on that set.

  NATALIE DORMER (Margaery Tyrell): I’ve never spoke about this previously: I didn’t audition for Margaery Tyrell originally. I auditioned for Melisandre. Then I got a call from my agents saying, “They loved you but want you to audition for another role.” And I’m like, “Damn, this Melisandre role looks fucking cool!” Dan and David said, “There’s this character Margaery, and we’re still exploring what we’re going to do with her.” You look back and realize Melisandre couldn’t have been anyone else, Carice did an amazing job, but I always had a chuckle on the couch when a Melisandre scene came on.

  Margaery brought a
very sort of modern PR kind of angle [to the ensemble]. She was canvassing the common people’s hearts and minds. I tried to think of her as like a hybrid of Michelle Obama and like a Kate Middleton or Princess Diana.

  ROSE LESLIE (Ygritte): I was ecstatic. I was in the center of London and got a call from my agent and he told me the good news. I was jumping up and down like a maniac, and I didn’t care that I was screaming in the middle of a crowded square.

  GEMMA WHELAN (Yara Greyjoy): I was doing a lot of comedy, but I always wanted to do serious drama as well. It’s quite hard when you’re working in comedy to even be invited into the room for a drama casting. Thrones came about because I was at a comedy casting [which had the same] casting director. I was literally in the right place at the right time, even though I was at a comedy casting. I thought, “This is never going to be my first drama, I’ll never get this.” So I was quite relaxed in the audition because I thought I never had a chance.

  KRISTOFER HIVJU (Tormund Giantsbane): I googled the character and read all the fan sites and blogs I could find about what fans had said about him. The fans gave me a very clear picture.

  DAN WEISS (showrunner): Kristofer had the beard already, for some reason. And he had this giant unpeeled carrot in the audition, which makes no sense because Tormund lives in a frozen wasteland. But he’s sitting there munching on this giant carrot, taking huge animal bites. There was something about it that was perfect even though nothing about it made any sense. I remember thinking, “I like what this guy is doing with the carrot. . . .”

  DAVID BRADLEY (Walder Frey): I didn’t have to audition, it was a direct offer, which is always nice. Some parts come through and I spend a lot of time struggling with how this person would be, how they would speak and move. With Walder, I knew how to play him as soon as I read it.

  MICHAEL MCELHATTON (Roose Bolton): I went up for several [Thrones] roles and didn’t get any of them. Then out of the blue I got an offer to play Roose Bolton. I didn’t know anything about the character, and the very next day I was meeting the costume woman to fit me for boots.

  MICHELLE MACLAREN (director): When I first got the job, I called up another director who worked on the show, David Nutter, and said, “I’m going to do Thrones, can I buy you lunch and get some advice?” And he goes, “Michelle, it’s a Porsche. Get in and drive it.” It was one of these things where the show was so massive and had such potential and such scope that you needed to go in and think of the impossible, to think of the biggest challenges you could. They wanted you to push the limits.

  BRYAN COGMAN (co–executive producer): I remember thinking when we got to Brienne, “How are we going to find someone that can play this?” I was really worried the Hollywood thing would happen where they’d cast some willowy girl and just say, “Well, she’s the best actress,” and not cast what the role really needed. George watched Gwen’s video first and said, “Oh my gosh, there she is.” I wrote the script where Brienne was introduced, and I can’t remember what it was like to write that character before it was Gwen. She was perfection in that role.

  ROBERT STERNE (casting director): There were lots of things about Gwen that didn’t look anything like Brienne of Tarth when she started out. The role’s description talked about Brienne’s muscularity and fitness and height—which was key. We’d seen Gwen in something completely different and got in touch with her, as it’s unusual to have a part for Gwen’s height. She read all the books and chopped her hair off, and by the time she came in she was flying with it.

  GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (Brienne of Tarth): The fans had seen pictures of me [after I was cast] on the Internet—some of which were frankly ghastly. I loved that fans said, “Who’s this model?” I only ever wanted to be a model. All I’ve ever wanted is for people to say I’m pretty, but “too pretty”? Amazing. I’ve always been able to look very different very easily, so I worked with a trainer and went to a gym. But I was still incredibly nervous. I hadn’t really done other filming, just bits and pieces. I trained for about four months to prepare for the role. Then I put the costume on, and that’s when I started to experience the first sensation of transformation. The costume was incredibly painful, but that is how it would have felt for Brienne to wear it.

  And then there was seventy-three-year-old screen legend Dame Diana Rigg, who was the ideal choice to play Tyrell matriarch Olenna, dubbed the “Queen of Thorns” for her piercing wit. Rigg was a Royal Shakespeare Company veteran whose credits included playing a Bond girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and sexpot Emma Peel in the 1960s The Avengers TV series. The Thrones team was delighted to cast actual British nobility to play Westeros royalty.

  DAVID BENIOFF (showrunner): When we initially cast Diana Rigg, we had tea with her. Dames don’t audition for you; you audition for them. We loved her. She was funny, she was bawdy, she was everything we wanted for that character.

  DAN WEISS: She said with a big smile, “There’s an awful lot of bonking, isn’t there?” Then she came to the first table read having already memorized her entire role for the season.

  DANIEL MINAHAN (director): Because I’m of an age where I, like, grew up watching reruns of The Avengers, I was like, “Oh my God, Emma Peel.” A lot of the young people on set didn’t understand who she was. They were like, “That old lady.” I was like, “That ‘old lady’ was ten times wilder than you can ever imagine.”

  Then we went to the table read together, and Diana said, “I’m thinking I’m going to wear a wimple.” Really quickly, I looked up “wimple.” Okay, it’s like something nuns wear? I was like, “So you don’t want to wear a wig, right?” She didn’t want to spend her days getting into a wig, and it takes about a quarter of the time to put on a wimple. Then we got to Dubrovnik in the summer and I think she really regretted wearing it, because it was eighty degrees and she’s in this nun’s habit.

  As second-season filming got under way, new cast members strove to figure out their roles and the Thrones world, while returning actors sought to improve upon their first-season performances.

  KRISTIAN NAIRN (Hodor): The atmosphere changed between seasons. The first season you had that sense of hope and expectation. The second season it was, “Oh, shit, that did really well. We have to do it again, but better.”

  JOHN BRADLEY (Samwell Tarly): In season one, we all got along so well, so you just hoped that atmosphere can carry on when you got separated from your core group.

  HANNAH MURRAY (Gilly): I hadn’t watched the show. I didn’t even have a TV. I only watched it after I got cast. It was like I was auditioning John Bradley, because I knew we were going to be working so closely together. I really wanted him to be brilliant. Then he came on-screen and after about three seconds I was like, “Oh, this is going to be great.” He brings so much warmth to that character; you care so much about him as soon as you see him.

  JOHN BRADLEY: Hannah and I were aware this was going to be a relationship that was going to have a relatively long-term future. So there was a certain amount of trepidation. We want to have a good personal relationship as well as a good professional relationship. As soon as we met, a connection was definitely formed. We had similar attitudes about how to perform this relationship, and both had a distrust of anything that was too saccharine and manipulative.

  GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE: My first filming day there was a hurricane. It was all extremely dramatic. We were all holed up in a little hotel with these open fires and a view of the coastline and the landscape. Everybody was just so open and warm, and we were all so excited to be on this show. We really bonded.

  GETHIN ANTHONY (Renly Baratheon): Gwen’s incredible. She insisted on organizing my real-life birthday party, on the basis that that was the kind of thing that Brienne would do for Renly, which was just amazing. I remember seeing her at the gym, and seeing physically how hard she prepared to play this role and it was really impressive.

  PETER DINKLAGE (Tyrion Lannister): When we went out at night, we wouldn’t talk about the weather. We talked about the
show. We went out to dinner and were still talking about it, which is such a testament to the show.

  GEMMA WHELAN: I was trying to get rid of my feeling of imposter syndrome. On sitcoms, humor and levity is the essence of what you’re doing and you default to that. My introduction scene was with Alfie on a horse. We had quite a flatulent horse, and I found that extremely funny. And Alfie very gently said, “Listen, you have to not lose it to a giggle. You’re on a big show now. Pull yourself together.” He said it in the kindest possible way. You’re on the Antrim Coast on a horse with limited time, so you don’t fuck around. He made me think, “Okay, behave yourself.” That was a kind piece of advice that was given early enough so I didn’t make a fool of myself.

  Later, there was a scene where Yara was meant to be chowing down on chicken in a scene. I don’t eat meat and I was too shy and too nervous to tell them that. So I spent a day eating chicken and just tried to justify the fact that I was going Method for the day.

  HANNAH MURRAY: One night it was three o’clock in the morning and we were all sitting around and Kit suddenly said, “This is such a ridiculous job that we do, isn’t it? We’re sitting in the woods in the middle of the night wearing cloaks.” And [Night’s Watch commander Jeor Mormont actor] James Cosmo goes: “Yeah, it is ridiculous, and the more seriously we take it, the more ridiculous it is.”

  That made such an impression on me. It was really wonderful advice for how to approach acting, because it really is silly and it’s important to recognize that. I was twenty-two at the time and that made me not take myself or the work too seriously, and I had a lot more fun as a consequence.