Beloved heroes lay dead outside the castle gates.
And then…
A sudden roar from above.
A gust of wind.
A blur of low-flying movement.
“Fking spoiler helicopter just flew right over the set!”
says an alarmed crew member.
This could be a disaster.
It’s April 2018 on the set of the final season ofGame of Thronesin Northern Ireland.
If paparazzi armed with cameras were on board, their photos would cause an explosion in the entertainment universe.
Did anybody get its tail number?
“There’s always a crisis, there’s always an imminent disaster,” Benioff says.
After a tense hour, the news comes down: It was a police helicopter.
SoGoT’s secrets remain safe for now.
All the while, the production never stopped moving.
Expectations are incredibly high.
“The fans will not be let down,” says director David Nutter.
“There are a lot of firsts in these episodes.
The showrunners also directed one episode: the mysterious series finale.
(More on that in a bit.)
There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences.
It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”
“Exhausting” is quite the understatement.
The episode required 11 weeks of grueling night shoots.
But if you spend even a brief time on set you realize staging the battle was unprecedentedly brutal.
“This is my first taste of it.
And I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.”
A full year before filming began, Sapochnik phoned Williams to warn her.
“Start training now,” he said, “because this is going to be really hard.”
“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.
“It was the most unpleasant experience I’ve had onThrones,” Glen says.
“A real test, really miserable.
You have no life outside it.
You have an absolute fked bunch of actors.
Concurs The Hound actor Rory McCann: “Everybody prays they never have to do this again.”
But for the show’s crew there is no relief.
“They’re the fking heroes.”
“It’s like seeing Nosferatu coming in,” Benioff says.
says the British director between takes.
“The [GoTbattles] I’ve done previously were generally from Jon’s perspective,” Sapochnik says.
“Here I’ve got 20-some cast members and everyone would like it to be their scene.
That’s complicated because I find the best battle sequences are when you have a strong point of view.
I keep thinking: ‘Whose story am I telling right now?'”
How has your story developed?
You have to hold in your mind what’s happened since we saw you last.”
To keep actors focused during the long, cold hours, Sapochnik surprises them with questions.
It gets you thinking.
Then he’ll go to another actor and go, ‘What are you fighting for?'”
(One actor snarks back, “My close-up!").
“Medic on set!”
a crew member yells.
The showrunners are out of their tent in a flash and run to her.
For a few still moments, it feels like the whole cast and crew are holding their collective breath.
Then the news circulates that she’s okay, “just fainted.”
The actress goes home early and is back the next day.
Filming wasn’t always going to be this tough.
That’s the standard Hollywood approach to assembling an action sequence.
And that makes sense.
There’s an efficiency to that.
“That’s not the show’s style and it’s not Miguel’s style.”
So they approved a schedule that became infamously known among the team as “The Long Night.”
It’s really immersive.
There were a few moments where I forgot it wasn’t real, which is bizarre.”
Amid the exhaustion, every detail still counts.
“Sam looks like a badass,” I say admiringly to Cogman.
The producer turns to others: “You hear what he just said?That’sthe problem.
Sam isn’t supposed to look like a badass.”
I suddenly wish I hadn’t said anything.
But Bradley quickly adjusts his performance.
The next take he looks more confused, awkward and startled by each new attack.
Suddenly you’re not seeing badass Bradley, but Samwell Tarly.
“When doing these huge fight sequences, you get carried away sometimes,” Bradley says.
“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’snotthat good at this.
You have to play him because that’s what’s going to be truthful.
So stop being so good!'”
The battle scenes shot inside the studio during the day are tough as well.
Soon the cast and crew find themselves coughing up fishy candle wax.
“We’re no longer the little kids ofGame of Thrones,” Turner reflects.
“Thank God,” Williams replies.
“You know the Titanic was built here,” Turner says.
“All that child labor went into it and the child labor continues here today.”
“Except they had it worse, they weren’t brought tea,” Williams says.
Sapochnik suddenly appears and halts their banter: “Do you know what you’re doing next?”
“We think so,” Williams says.
“Have you seen your scene?”
he asks, referring to a “pre-viz” animation he mocked up of the battle episode.
“Yes,” Turner replies.
“Can we see the whole episode?”
“Rumor has it it’s 90 minutes long,” she helpfully prods.
Sapochnik just smiles and darts to his next task.
Spoiler: The cast and crew lived.
And all our favorite characters?
Well, their fates remain to be seen.
“The hard work pays off on this show,” Williams says.
For the finale, secrecy was ratcheted up to another level.
So it’s not really fair to ask somebody else to get that right.
If we’re going to drive anybody crazy it might as well be ourselves."
And what will theGame of Thronesending feel like?
The show’s cast have teased a wide and conflicting spectrum of reactions in media interviews.
You know this is a story that subverts conventional fantasy storytelling.
Still, make no mistake…
“We want people to love it,” Weiss says.
“It matters alotto us.
“We’ve spent 11 years doing this.
Adds Benioff: “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.”
The finale will air May 19.
And then we’ll enter a post-Game of Thronesworld, with all our watches having ended.
Benioff is pretty blunt about his finale viewing plans.
