sean bean lord of the rings game of thrones

#Sean bean lord of the rings game of thrones series#

When you say it was a showcase, what do you mean? And then we reshot over half of it, we kept bits and changed things around, and it more of a story rather than a montage. It was more of a showcase, I think, than anything else. There were lots of glimmers of potential, and I guess that was the idea, to try and display all these different dynamics in order to finance the show and get support behind it. It seemed a little fractured at the time because we were all trying to find our feet and find out who we were and how we interacted. We shot in Shane’s Castle for my castle, and then we worked in Scotland for the banquet. We were in Belfast for that and we shot a lot in the studio. Do you have any strong memories of shooting that first version? I’m always interested in hearing about the original Game of Thrones pilot, because it’s something the public will probably never see. And I’d never played a character with such a big family. They’re interesting characters, but Ned was just out-and-out a good man. He was a good man, he meant well, but he had this weakness which cost him his life. I’ve played characters before that were “decent” people, but not genuinely good, you know? There was always a bit of a side to the characters I played. Was that kind of character new for you at the time? They were very excited and very passionate in the way they spoke, and I was very enchanted by the prospect of portraying this great man called Ned Stark. They described what it was all about, the characters and the fact that I wouldn’t probably last for another ! So they were very candid and I appreciated that. I wasn’t aware of the books and they’d just sent me the treatment for the first pilot. We met in a little café in Soho in London, me and David Benioff and Dan Weiss. As Game of Thrones prepares to air its final season, Vulture caught up with Bean from his home in rural Somerset to talk about his favorite memories from his single season on the show, Ned’s legacy, and playing death scenes.ĭo you remember how they approached you for the gig? But the moment would not have been so effective without the performance of Sean Bean, who brought a gentle humanity to the rough-hewn northern lord that underscored the tragedy of his fate. Martin’s novels had long known: This was a grim, unjust world, and nobody was guaranteed to get out of it alive, no matter how beloved they were. Ned’s passing crystallized something that readers of George R.R.

#Sean bean lord of the rings game of thrones series#

(That was Viserys Targaryen, who got molten gold poured all over him by his own brother-in-law.) But eight years later, his surprise execution in the show’s ninth episode remains the most iconic death on a series that has seen more than its fair share of early departures. (That was Ser Waymar Royce, who got killed by a White Walker.) And he was not the first major character to die on Game of Thrones.

Ned Stark was not the first person to die on Game of Thrones.