ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So here you are.
You guys always say that.
Every season.BENIOFF:Yeah.
But every year there’s a bit more pressure.
There’s no, “Well, we’ll get it right next year.”
“Is a line right?”
seems more important than in seasons past.
But you still find yourself spending a lot more time to get it right.
You’re used to giving scripts to your cast and hearing their reactions.
Your cast has such ownership over these characters and you only had six episodes to wrap the story.
We knew exactly what minute they sent them.
And then you’re just waiting for them to email.WEISS:Why aren’t they writing?
Does that mean they like it?
But some hadn’t read it until the table read.
Kit Harington waited, I heard.WEISS:That was funny.
“F. Does he hate it?
If he hates it, does that mean we got it wrong?”
We spent a lot of time thinking about his character.
We saw him on the day of the table read and said: “So?”
I want to experience it the first time in this room.
Did any of the actors say, “This wasn’t what I wanted for my character?
You do your best.
Stuff is going to leak no matter what, so you try your best to limit it.
There’s always going to be a certain level of douchery, of people trying to spoil things.
We’re certainly happy we got through production without a leak.
But there have been issues that have happened in postproduction, or a week before an episode airs.
So we’re entering the most dangerous time.
You took so many precautions.
Months and months of security preparation and now there’s a Ferris wheel.”
How much of this season is from discussing the ending with George R.R.
And honestly, neither do we.BENIOFF:We don’t.
And George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing.
I don’t think that final book is written in stone yet it’s not written on paper yet.
As George says, he’s a gardener and he’s waiting to see how those seeds blossom.
With serialized shows, there is so much pressure on the finale.
People’s opinion of the last episode can color how they feel about the whole series.
It matters alotto us.
We’ve spent 11 years doing this.
I was hoping for more.
“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.
It’s also part of the fun of any show that people love arguing about it.
I loved the way David Chase endedThe Sopranos[with its surprising cut to black].
I was one of those people who thought my TV had gone out.
I think that was the best of all possible endings for that show.
But a lot of people hated it.
I’ll always remember being on the subway headed to Yankees Stadium a couple days after theSopranosending aired.
And there were like three different conversations in the subway and they were all about the exact same thing.
I didn’t likeThe Sopranosending the first time I saw it.
A few years ago I rewatched the series and loved the ending.
Either way, it works for me.
Somebody put togetherthat long detailed explanationof why Tony’s dead.
It’s incredibly convincing.
But at the same time, that’s not part of the show.
Once it cuts to black nobody knows, and that’s what great about it.
And there’s not even an answer to that.
I want that to be the argument.
I just wish we found better directors for it.
What made you decide to direct the finale yourselves?
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.
At least if something goes wrong, he can yell at me and I can yell at him.
Speaking of yelling at each other, you guys normally come across like you’re so in sync.
Do you ever fight?
Because what if you’re wrong?
Or whether the take where an actor is smiling or just sort-of smiling is better.
So we’d spend like an hour on that.WEISS:An hour discussing literally four seconds of film.
Seconds that probably happen when most viewers are looking at their watch or checking their messages.
But in terms of the story?WEISS:Jon and Dany are obviously together-together now.
It came to fruition at the end.
And here they’re together from the beginning.
I actually can’t think of anything that even comes close.
There was the Takashi Miike movie13 Assassinsthat did a pretty awesome 40 minutes.
Part of our challenge, and really Miguel’s challenge, is how to keep that compelling.
We’ve had big battles since season 2.
It always comes back to what’s best for the story.
Then you got half a movie to do your battle.
We’ve been lucky enough to have 70-plus hours to tell you who everybody is.
There are so many individual stories you bring to that situation.
The best action is driven by character, not by how many swords and spears you might swing around.
Then add 20 to that, because there are 20 people you care about in this situation.
That’s a huge challenge, but it’s also a lot of fun.
Usually things of this scope tend to be in movies because they take a lot of time and resources.
Do you feel like you’ve been able to do what you envisioned years ago?WEISS:Yes.
We always believed it was about 73 hours, and it will be roughly that.
As much as they wanted more, they understood that this is where the story ends.
Won’t you be alittlecurious?
The montage where Cersei got her revenge against the High Sparrow.
But I hope it will be a scene in this season.
It’s nice to go out on your strongest notes.
Game of Thrones returns Sunday, April 14.
