♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ (GRUNTING) Episode three was.
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Oh, my God.
As a fan I thought, “Wow.
“As a DP, I thought, “Fuck.
“(CHUCKLES) If you take Hardhome and you take Bob, and to take the lake, and you add them together, add a five-by-four, you have episode three.
DUNCAN MUGGOCH: We had 11 weeks of night shooting, so that was quite a featfor any crew to go through.
DAVID BENIOFF: We knew this episode was gonna be almost entirely battle.
It's well over an hour and it's mostly action.
And part of what we caredabout a lot here was getting Miguel on board and forcing him to shoot 55 straight nights.
Look at it this way:I never everwant to do that again.
I don't think anybodywho did thatever wants to do it again.
Yeah, that was tough.
And I don't think it was something that anybody really realizedjust how hard it was gonna be.
EMILIA CLARKE: “The Long Night.
” When I was doing it, it was minus 14.
Just chilling.
Minus 14.
In a field.
You know, it's too cold to snow.
When it's too cold to snow, you know you got trouble.
BERNADETTE CAULFIELD:Chris and the rest of the team, they were there day in, day out.
We would start your eveningat six o'clock at night, and then you'd go homeat five o'clock in the morning and it just– That's brutal.
Your body never acclimatesto that 100 percent.
JACOB ANDERSON: By, like, week three, they.
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people lookedslightly haunted.
The cast, stunts, background, crew, everybody just looked like, this is.
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This is, like, getting into us.
(CHUCKLES) This is, like, getting into our spirits.
I– I'm not gonna lie, it was horrible.
(CHUCKLES) We enjoyed the work and I said to my guys, “You know, you might not want to do it again, but you won't regret doing it the first time, because the product, what you've achieved, is amazing.
” CHRIS NEWMAN: I think the crew, they enjoyed the– The result is, you know, you didn't do all this and think, “That's not really impressive.
“There's no doubt about it.
It's reallyan impressive sequence.
And I think the nights are just one of the things we're gonna get through this.
It's just another notch in the belt of the crew on Game of Thrones that they'd done things that feel quite unique.
MAISIE WILLIAMS: I'm proud of everyone.
I'm proud of the workthat was put in.
I think it was a mammoth taskthat we were faced with.
And we did it, and it just feels incredible.
That first weekafter night shoots, seeing the crew, like, smiling at the sun.
What they went throughwas pretty stunning, and, look, it's not–You know, there's no special prizefor being the toughest crew, but there probably should be.
D.
B.
WEISS: Working in the pitch dark in the rain, in the mud, it's a real testament to the entire Belfast crew, who.
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gave us somethingthat no amount of moneycould ever buy.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ The task that we had, which wasthe primary task on three, was how do we keep thisinteresting? 'Cause simply, battle fatigue, you know.
You just get bored, you get exhausted.
We really wanted to make surewe were telling a coherent storywith the whole thingand not just having.
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battle-beat, battle-beat, battle-beat.
There needs to be a shape to it and a propulsion to it.
DAVE HILL:It became clear when we started planning it, that the battle was gonna bea series of concentric circles.
It would bewalls of defenses failing, and the dead getting closer and closer to the center, into the heart of Winterfell and taking over everything.
The way that I conceptedepisode three visually, was to create a color scheme that developed throughout the whole episode.
So, it starts with a moonlit night.
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because the Night King brings the storm and the clouds.
The moon becomes dissipated and the moonlight takes over, but in a very diffused kind of way.
(SHOUTING) And then the next stage would bethe trench going up.
(INDISTINCT DIALOGUE) We wanted the trench to be this overpowering light.
And in prep for a long time, Miguel always mentioned hell to me.
It's turning into Hellfor each character.
So the blood-red fire of the trench takes over the image and.
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completely drains out the blue of the moon until the end, because the trench is dying down.
The moonlight suddenly gets introduced again.
So that was kind of the way for me to.
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To break it up into sections.
MIGUEL SAPOCHNIK: So, you have something that's visually different, so it's refreshing in that respect.
But how do we take itone step further? So, what we decided was togive each act a genre.
So, basically Act I is suspense and it's buildup.
And the best way to do buildup is– In any sort of kinda monster movie, which is what this is, is to not see the monster.
Act II is actually, from the moment that Arya is on the back foot and enters into the castle, that's the horror movie.
And then Act III is an action movie.
(GRUNTING) And so, by breaking it into genres, it allowed us to change rhythm and go off on tangents when we followed specific characters for a longer period of timerather than worried about what was happeningto everyone else.
NEWMAN: The core of it is the people you care about.
You wanna care about the people fighting, so every effort is madeto make sure that you center that conflictsaround the people you know.
BENIOFF: So, whether it's Arya's storyline, or Sansa and Tyrion down in the crypt, or Jon Snow and Dany up on the dragons, it's kinda like all theseseparate little battleswithin the greater battle.
(YELLING) (BREATHES HEAVILY) (INDISTINCT DIALOGUE) Light the trench!Light the trench! Ah, fuck! (CHUCKLES)Sorry, I'm really sorry.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ BENIOFF: The living do have some time to prepare for this battle.
And one of the things they knowgoing into it is that they're gonna beoutnumbered, and another thing they know is that the wightsdon't like fire.
So, they dig a massive trench around the entire castle, and fill it with kindling.
DEBORAH RILEY: To read the word “trench” on the page doesn't sound like anything, but it took such a lot of workto try and resolve it to a point that it was a convincing methodof defense.
It was important that this trench not be something that anybody could jump over.
So, we needed to construct these bridges that would then collapse and create another barrier.
The trench hadreal wooden spikes, real wooden logs liningthroughout the trench.
Then the real logs were replaced by steel logs that could burn over a number of weeks without burning away.
We had to accommodate a whole special effects rig.
So, the considerationsare enormous.
Then, yeah, the trench sort of encompasses.
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pretty much the whole of the castle.
As trenches go, it was a good trench.
(LAUGHS) And I've done some trenches.
(CHUCKLES) MAN: Light the trenches! And then the realityof how do we light a.
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nine-hundred foot-long thing full of bitumen, with hundreds of people running at it and stunt people in it.
Oh, I mean.
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♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ So.
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(LAUGHS) The complicated processof the trenches began with the concept of itbeing a first line of defense.
Therefore, it had to be impressive, it had to be very big.
So, we had to devise a way we could produce a flame which is big enough for the outside environment.
So we came up with a system, which is just a simplewater trough.
It makes the most economical flame out of propane.
And then, of course, you've got to thinkabout the consumable part of it.
You can't have real logs in there, it has to be a steel thing.
It has to be able to endure the heat and the fire.
I think we did 900 steel logs, and we did 16 steel troughs.
And then you have to work out how you get that amount of gas to each trough.
We've got one four-ton tankerwith a mobile unit, which is five ton.
So, with the combinationof the two, we convert liquidinto the gas, and that's what gives usour gas of life.
We run it off an electronic valve system that's tied in with a firing box.
And each one is ignited by an individual gas bank in a sequence.
It uses a lot of gas.
A lot of gas.
-Got your gas bill yet?-Haven't got my gas bill.
Dreading that one.
(BOTH LAUGH) When you see the Red Priestesscome out and light that trench, that that would be such an extraordinary moment, as it just.
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(BLOWS) .
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lights around Winterfell.
In terms of imagery, I always thought that was such a fantastic thing.
So, you really were seeingfor the first timethe ice and fire meeting.
So, that was something thatI thought was a reallylovely image to establish.
-(FIRE ROARING)-(SNARLING) (SNARLING) WILLIAMS: I got a call from Miguel, like, a year before we started shooting.
Basically, he was like, “I can't tell you anything but get your endurance up now, I want you to be training.
You have a lot to do.
It's gonna be night shoots.
We're gonna do three monthsof night shoots.
” And I was just like, “Okay!” Like, I think I was in Bostonat the time, like, eating cheese fries, like, “Cool!” (CHUCKLES) (YELLING) (GRUNTING) Her entire fight throughthe battlements was just a real great moment, and everything that I have learned really did come down to that and I did use every sort of skill that I'd learned in that fight.
ROWLEY IRLAM: It's one thing to go on the battlements, but then over the topof Winterfell, you've got these two staircasesthat go up to the middle sectionof castellation.
So, we thought it would be really claustrophobic and dark and scary to bein there with wights, but that's when the full staffdoesn't really work.
We all know these tunnelsare very small and the last thing you wantis a five-and-a-half or a six-foot quarter staffgoing throughsmall, little alleyways.
So, what I decided to do on this one, be able to cut it in half so it'd be able to disassemble within the fight sequence, and then have two, -so she could use both in each hand.
-(GRUNTING) Which is great, and it gaveArya then the stunts, something else to play withand to train with.
Yeah, 'cause if I concentrateon doing the move, one of them does it, and then the other one doesn't.
And it's like.
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One of the incredible thingsabout Maisieis that she's a righty.
Because Arya in the booksis left-handed, she decided she was gonna learnhow to fight left-handed.
So, in season one, when she's training with Syrio Forel, she's training with her left hand and it was incrediblychallenging, but what it does mean was that she's learned how to fightleft-handedand she's actually right-handed, so she's becomean ambidextrous fighter.
Maisie does almost all of this stuff on her own.
She has an excellent stuntwoman for the dangerous stuff, but most of it is actually Maisie.
Her coordinationand she's really quick.
(CLICKS FINGERS) You know, can make changeson the spot and it actually– She's really easy to work with.
It's one thing practicinga fight, which is like a spar, a sparring fight, you know.
But then when you're actuallyfighting for your life.
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(YELLING) .
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with loads of stuntmen who, like, do this day-to-day and are not scared of anything, and they're covered in this crazy makeup and they're coming at youlike.
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(GROWLS) It's just a completelydifferent ballgame.
And I think I probablyhold the recordfor the most apologies on set.
(WILLIAMS GASPS) -Fucking hell! I'm so sorry.
-(LAUGHTER) -(GROWLING)-Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry, guys! MAN: They're fine, they got pads on.
WEISS: We knew any situation where lots of people are fighting, Arya needs to play a central role 'cause she's one of the best at it.
That's amazing, and it's a lot of fun to watch, but it's also– It's one noteand to try to play that note through the whole episode, it wouldn't have worked.
So, having her wounded, and having her almost taken out of commission and almost rewinding the clock on who Arya Stark is, would really be interesting.
It would also give us a chanceto change up the natureof the story we were telling.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ SAPOCHNIK: The library sequence was built around the idea of: I need to have a marked shift, where the audience, insteadof coming back and going, “And more battle, “they come back and they go, “Oh.
Change in style.
” Hopefully, what it does is it refreshes the audience, and they're like, you know, “We wanna know what's going on outside, but we're okay to be inside for a minute and slow things down.
And we're also okay to be with Arya, ” who's suddenly, from being this incrediblyconfident character that she's been nowfor quite some time, is completely traumatizedby what's happened to her.
One of the things we did when we shot that sequence is we designed the library in a certain way, and then I took Maisie in there, and I got nine wights or something in there, and I gave them all a path and then I told her she had to make her way through it without being seen.
And we figured outthis whole choreographed piece where everything was a near miss and everything was just about not seeing her, and everything had to be silent.
And it was really fun to do.
(SHUFFLING) WILLIAMS:Oh, my God, that was so scary.
(LAUGHTER) BARRIE GOWER: So the hero wights in the library.
Miguel, he was after somebody who could get themselves into quitean interesting position, but have the physique whichwould be a little bit unworldly, which would suggest they're dead basically.
I knew of this performer, Spanish performer, called Javier Botet, and he's double, triple jointed.
He can do the most ridiculous things with his body, and he's been coveredin prosthetics pretty much all his career, so I knew he was the guy that could pretty much sell it for us.
And from a prosthetics point of view, he's got a couple of little bits and pieces.
He's got some little cheek bone appliances.
We got a few little scrapesand wounds, and then we just did this sort of airbrushed body painting on him as well, and just really accentuated all his sort of shadows and all his musclesand his bone structure and his movement just sold itfor us.
(CRACKLING) (SNARLING) ♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ JOE BAUER: We're all in love with Lyanna Mormont.
I think the whole world is, so we wanted this to be her absolute heroic moment.
BELLA RAMSEY: Oh, when I found out I was dying, it was, like, it was the best thing, really.
It sounds strange, but I either decidedI'd be happy if I ended up on the throne, which I thoughtwas very, very unlikely, or I had a great death, so I'm very happy.
And the whole giant thing, that's just really cool.
-Bang.
-(THUD) ERIC CARNEY: All the shots with Lyanna and Krum.
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were all reallypretty complicated, and they all had lots of piecesto them.
So, it started out at tomb, where we shot the Winterfell set, and we shot a lot of the backgrounds for the shots, and where we wanted to framefor the giant, we used this technology called INCAM, and this allowed us to playback sort of an animation of what the giant's performance would be that was synced to the camera.
And so that when Sean Savage, who's the A camera operator, is operating on the day, he can actually see the giant at its proper scale in the set.
So, they were able to operate it as if it was a real thing.
We got it.
Yeah, that better, boys.
Let's move that out.
The giant is real.
He could be 3D, but we prefer to shoot real, organic live photograph peoplewherever we can.
Our giant performer, Ian White, who's seven-foot five, I believe, he performed all the actions of the giant in front of green screen, but we shot him in a way to double his scale.
For the shots where he had to pick up Lyanna, we put tracking markers ona green doll that he picked up, and we motion captured thatand would use it to drive a robotic arm, basically, to pick up our actress, Bella, and that would move her aroundas if she's being held by Krum.
You know, for some of those shots, there's at least four or five elements that we photographed at different times that will allgo into making that final shot.
Really, it's just bringingthe lowest techs, miniature props approach, and the very highest tech, digital scaling and digital handoffs.
-(SCREAMS)-(ROARS) RAMSAY: Yeah, I think it'svery fitting for Lyanna to die, like, doing something like that, stabbing a giant in the eye.
It's a bit like– I realized today, it's a bitlike David and Goliath.
The same sort of thing.
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that justa stab in eye kills him.
(CHUCKLES)With this little Lyanna Mormont.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ PETER DINKLAGE: Down in the crypt becomes just a complete horror movie.
It's terrifying down there.
We're in a crypt.
Nobody thought of that.
He's bringing allthe dead people back to life.
And they've put womenand children in a crypt with all the dead people, so.
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(GROWLS) Tyrion is smart, but I guess not that smart.
SOPHIE TURNER: Yeah, the whole action was really fun, 'cause I never get to do any action.
In between setups, Peter and Iwould be joking around, like, with our guns, like, running between podium to podiumtrying to catch a wight.
We felt like action stars, even though we're probably around, like, five meters.
GOWER: With the wights in the crypt, for us, that was exciting, 'cause we realized we could do some really cool mummified, and dried husky sort of, um, wights.
We referenced ancient mummies.
We looked at corpses and there are some tombs whichhave got these figures which are exactly the inspiration we were looking for and they're these dried, wizened bodies which still have driedencrusted skin all over them.
They still have hair, and they're hundredsand hundreds of years old.
They have their teeth.
Really, really dusty, and completely different to what we'd seen before.
TURNER: There was one point where I had to, like, run through a crowd of people, and wights were coming out, and one came up to me, and I actually started crying, I was so scared, like–(CHUCKLES) Whenever I get scared, I just cry and it was so awful.
Those wights are horrible.
Just as scary in real life.
I hate them.
DINKLAGE: They're arounddark corners, and you're like– You don't fully knowwhere they're all coming from.
I mean, everything's safeand mapped out, but it's still–You get into it.
And you're just going by candlelight, we don't have any other lighting sources down there, really.
It's creepy.
It was fun.
A week undergroundwith dead people.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ Think we're such nice people, but, you know, we– It's just such violencethat we're portraying, and, uh, I've often said, “How did we end up here?” I think the lesson that we learned on Battle of the Bastards was just how difficult it is to work with dead bodies, to work with these prop bodies.
How expensive it is, how difficult they are to move around.
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so Rob Cameron and Gavin Jones, our prop maker, came up with the idea of moldingthese bodies into these disks.
The brief was to try and createa lightweight version of bodies as a sort of relief.
We would get eight or ninedummies dressed in their armor, and then we would make a huge mold of that.
So, our mold could capture all of the detail, the limbs and the fabric and the armor.
KEVIN FRASER: We had, I think, probably about 300 body piles, which we would've paintedup in different elements, you know, give them some skin tone, give them a bit of a palette, and individually pull out each body.
ROB CAMERON: And the good thingabout these, the weight of them, we can actually mound them up, so the prop boys came upwith this great idea of wedges and then building them up, so it's total carnage and devastation, really.
It looks great.
I've got to say, they workreally, really, well.
The prop guys will never wanna see another one of these disks again, because they spent a hell of a lot of their time walking them around, moving them from the right flank.
Okay, now we've gotta dress the left flank.
So, all the bodies have to move across to the left flank.
Fucking hell! PAUL GHIRARDANI: For close up stuff, interspersed with that, would be live people dressed as dead bodies.
When you walk on set sometimes, and they're about to shoot, suddenly one of them will twitch or sort of move or something and it's like, “Oh, my God!”because that's actually an extra who's been dressed as a dead body.
And will sort of be in there amongst the ones we put in.
Yeah, it's very disconcerting.
(CHUCKLES) It's a strange place to be.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ SAPOCHNIK: The last third of the movie where we move into an action film, Jon realizes that the real taskstill at hand is to, essentially, protect Bran.
-Bran!-BRAN: Go! SAPOCHNIK:And so, he heads into Winterfelland we follow him on a journey.
SEAN SAVAGE: We've used Automus Maxima, it's a handheld device either the camera operatoror the grip can carry it, and then one of the camera operators will operate it remotely.
You know, it's like.
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It's like a remote control steady cam, really.
It's very clever.
The camera flows through the castle, and stays with the character.
I think the audience is gonna feel like they're traveling with them, and right up front with them.
That was the real kind of heartof, I think, that episode, is that long sequence with allthose different characters.
SAPOCHNIK: We needed Jon to make his way through the courtyard, and bear witness to allof the charactersthat we know and we care about, that he knows and he caresabout, being overwhelmed.
What we essentially did is we took each group of people and gave them all a fight, and they learn the fight, and we shot the fight, and we use little pieces of it.
They were all losing battles.
ANDERSON: I got to do, like, a flippy move.
Got to fling my spear, like, around my head, I like doing that stuff.
A bit of flair.
-(GRUNTING)-(SNARLING) GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE: I loved, loved, filming the sequence where we are really upagainst it and it is overwhelmingfor Brienne, and Brienne is in battle mode.
It was really all-encompassing that night.
Being there was so intimidatingand so, you know, we were all really panickedby how claustrophobic it was, and I think that really adds to the work.
One of my highlightsfrom that episode is standing on the pile of bodiesand fighting for my life.
And the funny thing was that we said to the stunt guys, if you manage to get me down, take me down, so on some takes, I died.
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(CHUCKLES).
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or Tormund died.
(GRUNTING) I was really fighting for my life.
Kristofer's life.
(LAUGHS) (GRUNTS) (LAUGHS) Strong arms, that.
(GRUNTING) (SCREAMING) BENIOFF: One of the shots that I really love there is Jon looks over at his best– Sees his best friend being attacked by all these wights, and in any other circumstance, Jon would, of course, rush over to try to help Samwell.
It was great, because it was this idea of.
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Sam being one personJon has always gone back for, has always relied on, has always been his true friend, and he had to sacrifice him to go after the Night King, and then it was finalized with a moment where.
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at some point, we just ran out of stunt guys to throw at Sam, and so he sat there, and he juststarted crying and it was great, because it truly was crying amidst all this violence.
So seeing John do thatwith Sam, I thought it was really, really great.
Again, he felt trueto the character.
JOHN BRADLEY: If you're involved in a battle scene, you like to see yourself as a fighter, and you like to make it lookas good as you possibly can, and Miguel was the one who hasto keep reigning me in and say, “Remember, you're playing Samwell Tarly, and Samwell Tarly is not a fighter.
” The reason that Sam is in thereis because he's not a fighter, and it's because he can showhow normal people would cope.
IRLAM: So we had to really dial him down and we just make itin such a way that we wouldn't allow himto be cool.
We just put him under so much pressure, which is not fair to himas a person, because we could pr– We coulddo it to everybody else too, but we just don't.
We made Kitlook really cool.
We do.
You know, it's like–All right, what can we do to make Kit look cooler? ♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ (VISERION ROARS) SAVAGE: So, one of the most challenging shots was when we traveled through the courtyard extensively and then we head down to whatwe used to call the old kennels, and as he's running downthis very long, dark corridor, we had to coordinateabout 15 stuntmen dropping out of the roof around him.
They're obviously going to arrive in a certain zone, -certain moment, certain second.
-(GRUNTS) Which.
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between the stunt guys and Kit, they had tocoordinate perfectly.
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against the wall.
Now put it on his neck, and then drag it out.
But take your time.
I wouldn't kill him.
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I wouldn't kill himuntil you see the next guy.
(GRUNTING) SAPOCHNIK:And everything was really based around the idea of, like, how can we make it feelas messy as possible? SAVAGE: Well, then we had to obviously put one of our stabilizedhandheld rigs behind him, and still stayreally close to him to make the audiencefeel that jeopardy, the danger of what was happening.
After we've choreographed itand rehearsed it, what have you, and when we're shooting it, my job is the safety of it and making sure it all works.
Then I'm queuing, because, obviously, we all need to be in sync.
(SHOUTING COMMANDS) -Now!-MAN: Good! SAVAGE: That was probablyone of the greatest challenges, just to be in the right timeand right place.
And it had to be in, you know, fractions of seconds to do it.
And the camera did a 180 around him at one point during all this chaos.
Um.
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And we run backwards at that point until the great big steel door is– on– on railings is shot right in front of these guys near the last second.
And it feels like Jon Snow'sjust got through there, as has just– the camera'sjust got through as well.
So, yeah.
It's a very cool shot.
IRLAM: (YELLS)Go, go, go, go, go! -HARRINGTON: That's gotta be it.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) Just 'cause we fancymaking you do it again.
(LAUGHS) But ultimately, the key thing there was to give Kitthe fight of his life and then, at the end of it, present him with a.
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insurmountable odd, which is.
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a dead dragon.
Or an undead one.
Or not-dead.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ STEVE KULLBACK: The zombie dragon lands, having his face been torn off, can't exactly see, smashes through the ravenry.
Just an insane fight where Jon is duckingbehind these pieces of set as this icy blue fireis blasting over the top of him.
JOE BAUER: But the fun thing is that Viserion is so damaged by this point, he already hasa hole through his neck from being taken downby the Night King.
Now he's missing half his face, so he's leaking.
-(YELLS) -So, you know, this blue fire is kind of leaking and shooting around.
KULLBACK: There's fire blasting all over the place, which we shoot photographically, for real, usinga 3D motion control camera, blasting fire in a darkened stage.
BAUER: We actually did laser cuts for Viserion from the digital model of those openings.
And then bronze casts were made and then fitted by Sam Conway and his team with fire jets.
And then that was put onto this robot with a quick arm so that the fire would leak out of openings that were accurate to the dragon.
And there were so manymoving parts in this scene, because you've gotthe environment he's living in, which is partially the courtyard dressed and largely virtual because of the destruction that's needed to be created.
And there's shooting Kit in the set piece, so that he's got something to really duck behind and have interactive lighting wrap around him.
-Fire!-(KIT YELLS) GHIRARDANI: We did a lot of destruction in that courtyard.
We like building things, but equally, we like destroying things.
That's always quite fun.
So we go at it with flamethrowers, paint, earth, mud, you name it, we just.
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take it in there and do whateverit takes to destroy the thing.
I asked for a load of wood to be removed.
We made a huge bonfire of it.
We burned it for about a day until it's charcoaled, it's almost destroyed.
Then actually, we get something rather beautiful.
It's rather wonderful.
Just when you thinkthat it's all over, just when you think thatJon Snow's gonna be the hero, again, we realize.
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that Arya appearsthrough the mist.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ I mean, you're like, “Ooh, maybe I'll get him! I'm not gonna get him.
” And then you're reading, you're like, “Ooh, maybe Jon's gonna get him! Wait, he's not gonna–“And I remember actually being like, “Whoa!” And kind of applaudingin my head, and you know, “Yeah!” And then in the read-throughwhen, like, when Maisie was doing it, and we were all just like wooping and cheering.
(LAUGHS) Yeah, it's amazing.
I think Maisiethought it was super cool.
She's like, “Yeah, I'm gonna kill him.
” Um.
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Kitwas really fine with it.
I was pissed.
I was pissed that it wasn't mekilling the Night King.
I could've– I would've sw–I would've given you, like– I'd have bet you thousands.
Before we read the finals, I was like, “Yeah, it's definitely me.
” And then they lead you on, Jon's chasing the Night King.
BENIOFF: Jon Snow has always been the hero, the one who's been the savior, but.
.
.
it just didn't seem rightto us for this moment.
It's probably three years now, or something, we've known that it was gonna be Arya who delivers that fatal blow.
Dan and David let me breakall the Game of Thrones rules for that sequence.
Majority of it is shot 96 frames a second, it's all super-slow motion, it's all heightened reality, which is not whatthey usually do.
It's a surreal nightmare.
Finally, the Night King and Branare finding each other.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ The music plays a big part in creating that sense of despair that should exist in that moment.
And you're intercuttingwith Jon, who's clearlynot going to make it.
And you're intercutting with all our other characters, where they're just– they're so fucked.
Everybody's fucked.
I mean, that was literally–that was the phrasewe kept using.
It's like, “Let's dothe “it's fucked” shot.
” And then everyonewould shoot a shot where it just feels likethere's no escape.
Everyone's going to dieright now.
You know they're not, but we want you to feelthat same feeling of, “Oh, my God.
It's.
.
.
We can't.
What's the recovery?How do we come back from this?” And we've all forgotten about, you know, that little innocent girlfrom all those years ago who's turned intoa trained killer, who's coming out of nowhere.
♪ (TRIUMPHANT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ 'Cause essentially, she does jump out of nowhere, and that's a wire rig.
It's a wire rig we did on the location, but the location wasn't ideal.
It was really hard to get a crane in there, and we've obviously got the weirwood tree.
So it was tricky to do it there, and we dida version of it there, but then we had to redo it because we didn't have the ability to control it as much as we'd hoped.
And it needed to be a real”boom, out of nowhere” moment and a real– you know, a locking togetherof these two characters.
(ARYA SCREAMS) Shooting that was tedious, but.
.
.
so great to be able to performall these different beats within maybe, like, two seconds of footage.
(SCREAMING) BENIOFF: We knew it had to be Valyrian steel.
To the exact spot where the Child of the Forest put the dragonglass blade to create the Night King.
And that weapon has been one of the totemic pieces for us, and ultimately, we've known for a long, long time that was gonnaend the Night King.
WEISS: When Samwell's reading the book about dragonglass there is a picture of the dagger.
SAMWELL:The Targaryens used dragonglassto decorate their weapons without even knowingwhat the First Men used it for.
WEISS: It is very possible that the same thing that created the Night King is the thing that was necessaryto destroy the Night King, or maybe it's Valyrian steel, or.
.
.
Figure it out for yourself.
Not gonna say.
ISAAC: I think that's such a.
.
.
nice little full-circle thingas well, that that's the knifethat was destined to kill Bran, and here it is, saving him.
(ICE CRACKLES) That's, like, an iconic moment.
You know, the fall of the dead.
It's exactly what you need.
(LAUGHS) Like, oh, yeah! She, like, takes him down! It's so good.
It's so good.
It's perfect.
I think it's, uh, it's an inspired move.
Um.
.
.
You've always been waitingas to what purpose.
.
.
Arya's assassin skills were gonna lead to.
And it's for the most important purpose.
Reading what I get to achieve and Arya's whole purpose in this worldand everything she's trained for comes down to this one episode.
It's just amazing.
And it's just– it's beautiful.
It's poetry.
And I'm grateful that it was me and not Kit.
(LAUGHS) ♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ Think about Jorah.
From the first time we met him, he was with Dany, you know.
And the first time you meet himis at Dany's wedding, when he's giving herthe books of Westerosi history.
And from that time, he's beenmostly by her side.
If Jorah could have chosen a way to die, it would have been protecting Dany.
SAPOCHNIK: There was a lot of input from Iain and from Emilia about making sure their charactersstayed true to who they were.
Not having Jorah lose sight of his goal, which is protect his queen at all costs.
Emilia didn't want to becompletely damsel-in-distress.
EMILIA: My hero.
She didn't feelthat her character would be like that.
But then, we didn't– we've never seen her do anything in that vein, so we needed to make her not look like she was completely ineffectiveand disinterested in saving Jorah.
And then you don't carewhat happens to– No, that's why I'm tryingto play up the “Waaah.
” But also, this wasIain's big moment.
(GRUNTING) WEISS: We realized that all he ever wanted to do was to serve her.
And all he ever wanted to do was to– was to fightto protect her and there'd never been a momentwhere she more needed someone to fight to protect herthan this moment.
And Iain himself, I think, was– I think he was happyto go down fighting, 'cause he's very good at it.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ My favorite scene to shootwas my demise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just– just becauseit required most of me.
It was the most demanding and the most fulfilling scene.
And it felt the right conclusionfor Jorah's role.
And being given a good setting, a very kind of dramatic and telling setting.
BENIOFF:Incredible performance from Iain and also from Emilia at the very end there as she's holding him in her arms, and just that– you know, it's really hardto fake that kind of.
.
.
of pure grief.
And Emilia just really broadened those moments.
I think part of it was 'cause she's such a good actress, but I think part of it is because she and Iain had been working together for so, so long and have become very, very close, and they've hadso many scenes together, and it's all coming to an end, you know.
Both their characters'relationship on the show, but also, our time togetherworking on the show.
It was really hard.
You know, I just had to look at Iain's.
.
.
face, and it was like.
.
.
it's all there, it's all–that's our relationship, it's like, the whole.
.
.
You know, we've beenwith these characters for so many years.
We've been, like, to hell and back with them.
It's been, uh, it's been.
.
.
It's been quite a journey.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ Can't find the words.
You know? It's just.
.
.
great fun and, uh.
.
.
yeah.
I'm so really, very, very chuffed to be a part of the wholemad, wonderful thing of it all.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪.
