Why Sophie Turner Doesn’t Want to Watch ‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoff ‘Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
Sophie Turner has a stark opinion about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
Indeed, the Game of Thrones alum, who played Sansa Stark from 2011 to 2019, admitted she has no plans to tune into the newest HBO spinoff series.
“If I’m totally honest, anything Game of Thrones, I don’t think I can [watch],” Sophie said at a Jan. 12 screening of her new Prime Video series Steal. “I can’t even hear the theme tune. It gives me crazy anxiety.”
The 29-year-oldāmom to daughters Willa, 5, and Delphine, 3, with ex-husband Joe Jonasānoted sheās unsure why that feeling arises, though, adding, “I don’t know whyāI had the best time on that showābut I can’t watch anything related to it.”
While her stance presumably means she also hasnāt watched House of the Dragon, Sophie had words of encouragement for Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell, who lead the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms cast.Ā
“I’m really excited for the actors on it and I think it’ll probably be incredible, because it is that universe,ā the Do Revenge actress continued, āso, good luck to everyone involved.”
She concluded, “I won’t be watching it, but I’ll be rooting for you.”
Though Sophieās aversion to the Game of Thrones universe may be somewhat subconscious, she has detailed her up-and-down experience of being on the set of the worldās most popular show.Ā
Macall B. Polay/HBO; Steffan Hill/HBO
āBecause the subject matter was so heavy, people felt like they could talk to me like an adult,ā she explained to Porter in a Jan. 4 interview. āThe way youāre treated outside of your job is also as an adult, when youāre still a 13-year-old girl, and thatās hard. On the job, I felt like an equal to my peers. But starting in the industry young is not that fun for life outside of set.ā
So, when the show concluded in 2019, Sophie made the conscious choice to leave Game of Thrones in the past.
āI had a bit of an identity crisis and needed to step away entirely from that world for a couple of years,ā she continued. āIt was like a death, that show finishing. We all had to go away and process it a bit.ā
In the end, she added, āI needed time to figure out who I was, what I wanted, who I was as an actor.ā
To learn behind-the-scenes secrets of Game of Thrones, keep readingā¦Ā
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO
Made for TV
George R.R. Martin, whoseĀ AĀ Song of Ice and FireĀ novel series kicked offĀ in 1996 with the publication ofĀ Game of Thrones, has credited the popularity of the 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings films with growing viewers’ appetite forāandĀ criticalĀ appreciation ofāwell-made onscreen fantasy.
At the same time, heĀ didn’t like any of the pitches he was hearing about condensing hisĀ five epic talesāGOTĀ alone clocked in at 694 pagesāinto a watchable movie. Or even several movies. But as fate would have it, in the mid-’00s his agent sent the books to writerĀ David Benioffāand as soon as Ned Stark lost his head,Ā heĀ hadĀ writing partnerĀ Dan WeissĀ start reading as well, to make sure he wasn’t geeking out over nothing.
The pals decided quickly that only a TV series could doĀ A Song of Ice and FireĀ justice.
Their meeting with Martin was a success, but as all three remembered for James Hibberd‘s 2020 oral historyĀ Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, the author wanted to make sure Benioff and Weiss wereĀ really investedāso he asked, based on the clues woven throughout the books so far, whomĀ they though Jon Snow’s mother was.Ā
“We were weirdly prepared for that question,” Benioff recalled. And with that, they were in business. Or, at least, ready to start trying to do business with a network.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO
A Long Way Home
Benioff and WeissĀ felt early on that HBO, with its penchant for big spending, would be the best place for what they envisioned.
“There were a fair number of reasons not to do it,”Ā GOTĀ executive producer Carolyn Strauss, who was president of programming at HBO when she heard the pitch, remembered to Hibberd. “There are many ways a fantasy series can go south.”
Still, it was a yesāalbeit a yes that was only the beginning of the first leg ofĀ GOT‘s journey to the small screen.Ā It took months to secure the rights to the books, and then Strauss left HBO in 2008, meaning Benioff and Weiss had to re-convince the new programming president, Michael Lombardo.
The pair admittedly fudged the truth when they reiterated that the show, while expensive, would be more about the characters than anything else, knowing full well how grand the action got down the road.Ā
“I’m not sure I ever really believed that,” Lombardo told Hibberd of Benioff and Weiss describing the plot as “contained.” “We knew it was a gamble.”
The pilot got the greenlight in November 2008.
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The Crashed Pilot
Game of Thrones‘ premiere episode on April 17, 2011, was visually stunning and wildly intriguingāand it wasn’t the original $10 million pilot that was shot to suck you into the world of Westeros.
Actor-filmmaker Tom McCarthy, who had previously directed Dinklage inĀ The Station Agent and went on to make the 2016 Best Picture Oscar winnerĀ Spotlight, was instrumental in the GOT casting process andĀ helmed that first first episode.
Which, ironically, felt a little too contained. “There were concerns about whether we were getting enough wide shots,” Lombardo told Hibberd. Noting the lack of epic scope, “I remember the quote was, ‘We could have shot this in Burbank.'”
On Craig Mazin and John August‘s podcast Scriptnotes in 2016, Weiss called watching the reactions of the friends he gathered to screen the pilot “one of the most painful experiences of my life.”
Benioff noted that no one seemed to have caught on that amorous twins Jaime and Cersei Lannister were brother and sisterā”a major, major plot point that we had somehow failed to establish.”
They credited then-HBO co-president Richard Plepler with being able to see past what was there toward what could be. He ordered 10 episodes, including a new pilot, which they started filming in July 2010.
After watching the version that made it to HBOādirected by Tim Van Patten, with McCarthy credited as a consulting producerāat the series’ big premiere, Mazin rememberedĀ telling Weiss and Benioff afterward, “‘That’s the biggest rescue in Hollywood history.'”
The Chernobyl writerĀ continued, “Because it wasn’t just that they had saved something bad and turned it really good. You had saved a complete piece of shit and turned it into something brilliant. That never happens!”
McCarthy didn’t go into detail, but noted to ABC News in 2016 that, when they went back to “re-shoot and re-work the pilot,” he was already busy working on his 2011 filmĀ Win Win and wouldn’t leave. “And,” he said, “[GOT] was hugely successful without me.”
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A Flurry of Jon Snows
Kit HaringtonĀ beat outĀ countlessĀ aspiring bastards forĀ theĀ role of Jon Snow, including eventual costars Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), Joe Dempsie (Gendry) and Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton).
“I think I speak on behalf of every British actor when I say, we all auditioned for it,” Sam Claflin, who read for Jon and the despicable, short-lived Viserys Targaryan, told Cinema BlendĀ in 2016. But he moved onto other things and ended up following the palace intrigue like a regular person. “I like getting into things like that [as a fan] and not being a part, because I always find it’s very jarring if I was part of it.”
Nicholas Hoult alsoĀ went out for Jon Snow, telling Page Six in 2019 that he had a “ponytail and a very patchy fake tan” at the time because he was filmingĀ Clash of the Titans.Ā So I remember being like, ‘This is probably not what they’re hoping for,’ and it obviously wasn’t.”
“It could’ve been so different. I’d be dead now,” Rheon, who joined GOTĀ in season three,Ā told InterviewĀ with a laugh in 2016,Ā referring to Jon’s indeterminate fate. “I think they made the right choice; it would’ve been a very different Jon Snow if I’d played him. I don’t think there’s much point in dwelling on these kind of things.”
Besides, asĀ Sansa eventually tells Ramsay, “You’re going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well.”
Hbo/Kobal/Shutterstock; Macall B. Polay/HBO
A Close Shave
Peter DinklageĀ initially had no interest inĀ playing a dwarf in a fantasy tale, having avoided anything with a whiff ofĀ stereotype throughout his career. But, respecting Benioff as a writer and being friends with his wife, Amanda Peet, Dinklage agreed to read the script for theĀ GOTĀ pilot.
Let’s just say, it wasn’t what he expected.
AndĀ so he agreed to playĀ the series’ gravitational center, Tyrion Lannisterāthough at first he insisted on not having a beard, in spite of the book’s description of the imp whoĀ tries toĀ careĀ for littleĀ other than booze and women but can’t help being much more complicated. (He eventually relented on the facial hair.)
Dinklage won four Emmys for supporting actor in a drama series and was pretty much everyone’s favorite character.Ā
HBO
Rounding Out the Lovers, er, Lannisters
Just as importantly, Dinklage encouraged his pal Lena HeadeyĀ to audition for the role of his sister, Cersei Lannister. (Which, fans speculate, may have originally been offered to Gillian Anderson, who passed…onĀ something.Ā “My 18-year-old cannot believe that I would turn down Game Of Thrones or Downtonāthings she loves to watch,” the X-FilesĀ star once said.)
As for their brother, Jaime Lannister, Benioff and Weiss liked Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-WaldauĀ right awayāeven though exacting fans of the book complained about him not looking right. (Personal anecdote: Interviewing fans about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanĀ when it premiered in 2004, quite a few lamented that Gary OldmanĀ was playingĀ Sirius Black instead of their preferred choice: coincidentally,Ā Sean Bean. Moral of the story: It’s hard to please avid readers of fantasy.)Ā
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The Moon of Their Life
However, that doesn’t mean the readers don’t know what they’re talking aboutāand sometimes, ask and ye shall receive.
Fans of the book manifested the not-yet-particularly-well-known Jason MomoaĀ as Khal Drogo, and that’s what they got.
Steve Granitz/WireImage; Helen Sloan/HBO
Khaleesi 2.0
Tamzin MerchantĀ was first cast asĀ Daenerys andĀ was with the project throughĀ the original pilotāthough apparently she already wasn’t feeling it by then. And it came across on camera.
“Her scenes with Jason just didn’t work,” Lombardo explained to Hibberd. Co-executive producer Bryan CogmanĀ thought Merchant “did a really good job,” but, in hindsight,Ā “it’s obvious Emilia ClarkeĀ was born to play that part.”
It at least sounds as though there wereĀ no hard feelings on Merchant’s end.
“Shooting that pilot was a really great lesson,” the Tudors starĀ told Entertainment WeeklyĀ in 2021. “It was an affirmation about listening to my instincts and following them, because I tried to back out of that situation and, during the contract process, I did back out. I was talked back into it by some persuasive people. Then I found myself naked and afraid in Morocco and riding a horse that was clearly much more excited to be there than I was.”
And, Merchant continued, “I think it’s aĀ testament to Emilia Clarke for making that role iconicāshe was obviously excited to tell that story, and she was epic and excellent. But for me, it wasn’t in my heart to tell it.”
Helen Sloan/HBO
Game of Chance
At least two roles went to the only conceivable actors for the part because Benioff and Weiss are stand-up dudes.Ā TheyĀ had already found theirĀ Prince Joffrey when they went to Dublin to audition other young actors for different roles, andĀ Jack Gleeson was there to read for the evil young royal. “We didn’t want to cancel on him,” Benioff told Hibberd.
And John Bradley‘s train from Manchester to London was canceled on the day of his audition for Samwell Tarly, so he ended up going another route and was certainly going to be late. Once again, the creatorsāwho thought theyĀ had their Sam already, tooāwere too kind to cancel on someone who’d come all that way.
“He ran from the station,” Weiss recalled. “Then he found out the elevator was out.” Three flights of stairs later, that first guy was out of luck. “Within 30 seconds we realized [Bradley] had cost this other guy his job, because he was completely perfect.”
Hbo/Entertainment Pictures via ZUMA Press
Sisters in Arms
Maisie Williams was 12 when she shot a quick audition video of herself during lunch period at school and sent it along to theĀ GOTĀ casting crew, her second time trying out for anything. She ended up beating out dozens of otherĀ girls for the pivotal role of Arya Stark.
Thirteen-year-old Sophie TurnerĀ tried outĀ for funĀ with encouragement from her drama teacherĀ and didn’t even tell her parents till it was down to her and six others to play Sansa Stark. (It ultimately came down to her andĀ Izzy Meikle-Small, who reflected toĀ The TelegraphĀ in 2013, “I was a bit sad, because the show’s massive, but I’m not that unhappy, because they all show a lot of flesh, don’t they? I don’t think my parents would be happy.”)
Turner and Williams met atĀ one of their auditions and became fast, enduring friends.Ā While shooting season seven, the actresses got matchingĀ “07.08.09” tattoosĀ to commemorateĀ the day they were cast. (And that’s Aug. 7, 2009, how they do dates on that side of the pond.)
HBO
Stark Choices
Isaac Hempstead Wright was 10 when he unwittingly scored the role of the winner of the Game of Thrones, Bran Stark, blissfully going off to summer camp and being pleasantly surprisedĀ when he came home and found out he’d been chosen.
Pride and PrejudiceĀ star Jennifer EhleĀ played matriarch Catelyn StarkĀ in the original pilot. Ehle told The Daily Beast that, having just given birth to her first child, “It was too soon for me to be working, emotionally and bonding-wise, but I needed to do it and I was also passionate about the books.” But she was one and done, stepping asideĀ and opening the door forĀ the CatelynĀ youĀ know,Ā Michelle Fairley.Ā
And not wanting to miss their chance like thoseĀ Harry PotterĀ fools, Benioff and Weiss envisioned Lord of the RingsĀ starĀ Sean Bean as Ned Stark early on.
“We had a really good chat, and I was very thrilled to be asked to play the role,” the English actor toldĀ EW in 2019.Ā “I think it was only myself and Peter cast at the time. I was very thrilled by the whole idea. I didn’t actually know at that time how enormous and massive this series would become. I was just getting my head around the part, as we all were.”
So to speak.
HBO/Kobal/Shutterstock
You’ve Been Chopped
Ned Stark may have lost his head, but Bean had to go back to work.
“The death, that was wonderful because it was so unexpected,” Bean, who until that gut-punch of a twist (for non-readers of the books) in the penultimate episode of season one had truly been the show’s North star, toldĀ EW. “I thought it was amazing how they shot it. But I died, and then I had to do some scenes from earlier in the episode, so it wasn’t the end for me. We were in Malta; it was very hot. It was very colorful. Everyone was there, and with things like that there’s a sort of gallows humor to it.
“It’s awful what’s happening, and you start giggling and laughing. When the head fell off, there were mistakes. It didn’t quite work out sometimes. It was quite comic. So it breaks the ice a bit.”
HBO
Bloody Hell
Speaking of twists that faithful readers knew was coming but which destroyed anyway, season three’s Red Wedding in the episode “The Rains of Castamere” was always coming.
In fact, Martin told Hibberd forĀ EWĀ in 2019 that Robb Stark was basically death No. 2 in his book (give or take a lot of other relatively minor deaths) after Ned. WritingĀ A Storm of Swords, though, he left that scene for last (not for the end of the book, that is, but rather he put it off till later). “It was like murdering two of your children,” he said.
Richard Madden, who was reading a book a season, said he spoiled his own fate by Googling, though before that “a thousand people” madeĀ many allusions to the fact that something terrible awaited Robb.Ā
The show managed to make the scene sicker than the book by including Robb’s bride, Talisa Stark, in the massacre, but Oona Chaplināknowing Talisa was being killed offāwas ultimately glad her character was a part of it. “I was praying for a cool death and when I read [the script] I was like, ‘F–k, everyone dies!'” she toldĀ EW.Ā “But even when it was on the page it was nothing compared to what it was like on the day.”
“It was horrible,”Ā MaddenĀ acknowledged in a farewell-to-GOTĀ call with reportersĀ after the episode aired in 2013.Ā “It was a really difficult day for everyone. There was lots of tears from many people, including myself.”
Eamonn McCormack/WireImage
He’s My Brother
It was a hard pass for Lily AllenĀ when she was offered the part ofĀ Yara, sister of Theon Greyjoy, who was played by her real-life brother, Alfie Allen.
Not that the singer wasn’t flattered, but “I felt uncomfortable because I would have had to go on a horse and he would have touched me up and shit,” she told Vulture in 2014, referring to the scene when Theon, havingĀ not seen Yara since they were children, makes a pass at her because he doesn’t realize who she is.Ā “Once they told me what was entailed, I said no thanks.”
And Gemma Whelan was, of course, pitch-perfect as Yaraāonce she learned what the first rule of Game of Thrones was.
“The first lesson I learnt was when I first got the job. No one told me to keep quiet about it,” she told The Times in 2017. “I just thought it was normal to pop it in my Spotlight entry, so I wrote on my CV, ‘This summer, Gemma will be playing Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones.’ And the Internet went nuts. One of the lovely, lovely producers on Thrones called me into his office and said, ‘This is very serious. We almost can’t employ you because of this.'”
HBO
Erased From the Narrative
Jon Snow gettingĀ stabbed in the back by his Night’s Watch brothers (who technically stabbed him in the front, many times) at the end of season five was the cruelest of cliffhangers. Because even though he died before our eyes,Ā surely that couldn’t have been the end for him (even thoughĀ GOT wasn’t exactly averse to killing off main characters…).
“No one was allowed to say ‘Jon Snow’ on set, ever, everyone had to refer to me as ‘LC’ [for Lord Commander],” Harington told EW of theĀ subterfugeĀ that went into keepingĀ his character’s resurrection in season six a secret. The actor’s name didn’t even appear on call sheets or any other place on set where just anybody might see it.
“I’m glad that people were upset that he died,” Harington said. “I think my biggest fear was that people were not going to care, or it was just going to be, fine, Jon Snow’s dead, but it seemed like people did have aāsimilar to the Red Wedding episodeāa kind of grief about it, which meant that something I’m doing, or that the show is doing for Jon is right.”
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Beyond the Wall
As fans of both the books and the show were well aware, after season five Benioff and Weiss had to venture into the icy blue yonder alone once they ran out of source material, Martin really taking his time withĀ book six,Ā The Winds of Winterāwhich isĀ stillĀ in the works, FYI. (Though he did advise the showrunners on certain plot points, such as the heartbreaking past/present Hodor reveal.)
So in theory,Ā GOTĀ could have gone on and on instead of ending after eight seasons. But they didn’t want to overstay their welcome.
“We want to leave while all the people watching this show are really into it,” Weiss told Deadline in 2016Ā after the season six finale, also called “The Winds of Winter.” “Get out at a high point and not have it be, ‘Well, thank God that’s over.'”
Added Benioff, “We’re trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end. As Dan said, we’ve known the end for quite some time and we’re hurtling towards it.”
“The thing that has excited us from the beginning,” he said, “back to the way we pitched it to HBO is, it’s not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it’s trying to figure out new story lines.Ā We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it. We wanted to something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We’re definitely heading into the end game now.”
HBO
Everything on a Grand Scale
Yes, it was as difficult to shootĀ Game of Thrones as it looked, from the costumes that took an hour to put on to gathering 500 extras (which were then made to look like 8,000 people) and wrangling dozens of horses for season six’s “Battle of the Bastards.”
Maybe by the end, when water bottles and Starbucks cups were showing up in scenes, the crew was justĀ spent.Ā
“The hardest part is the horses,” Benioff noted to Deadline of the climactic showdown between Jon Snow and Ramsay Baratheon for control of Winterfell. “They make everything difficult and more complicated.” He credited “horse mistress”Ā Camilla NaprousĀ for making it all possible.
Plus, he continued, “We have amazing stunt performers and in Miguel Sapochnik, a director who’s so good at spending hours and hours and hours on every shot beforehand, so that he knows exactly what he wants when he gets to the battlefield on the day. We only shoot 10-hour days, so you have to pack a lot into thoseĀ 10Ā hours. I’ve never seen a director so meticulous in his preparation as Miguel. It pays off when you see what he gets onscreen.”
HBO
The Bank of Westeros
All told, over the course of 73 sprawling episodes,Ā Game of Thrones cost an average of $100 million a season to make, with the cost per episode rising from $6 million in its premiere season to $15 million in its eighth and final season,Ā VarietyĀ reported recently. But it won HBO 59 Emmys, broke incalculable ground for its genre and changed the lives of everyone who worked on the show.
And you can’t really put a price tag on that.
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