James Poniewozik of TIME Magazine recently conducted a long and in-depth interview with George R. R. Martin in his hometown of Santa Fe. They talk extensively about the novels and George’s history in television, and, of course, Game of Thrones. The interview is broken down into four posts on Poniewozik’s Tuned In blog. You can find the first part here. And here are parts two, three and four. I encourage you to read them all as they are a great read. (And spoiler free.)
Here are some snippets where George talks about the show that I thought were interesting. Click through to read them all, or better yet, head over to Tuned In to read the full interview.
On how much input he had in the visual design of the show:
Not a whole lot. I mean, they would occasionally show me something and I would comment, but the main thing that I was involved with was the casting… People ask me, is it what you imagined, and my answer is, no, not really. I have very strong visual pictures in my head about what they look like. And unless you’ve read my mind, that would be very hard for someone to get that.
But what they’ve done is good. If you are getting very creative people on [a show], you have to give them room to be creative. You can’t bring in a costume designer and then essentially design the costumes for them by saying, wrong, you have to follow slavishly everything that’s down here. You’re not going to get good people then.
On the child actors:
So you watch all this stuff and you reach a point where you’re just ready to despair and say, this can’t be done here because most child actors—a lot of child actors out there are in sitcoms. And their role in sitcoms is to mug and look cute, you know. Our kids have actual dramatic roles where they have to deal with grief and loneliness and anger and a lot of very adult stuff. [I thought] my God, how the hell, are we going to do this, you know? But then you find that one in a hundred, or one in a thousand that suddenly… oh my God, thank God, this is great. And Maisie Williams, who plays Arya, was one of those. I mean, just from the moment we saw her audition, I knew she was, she was our Arya and you know, the same was true for Sansa and Bran; two good actors who played those roles too. They were extraordinary.
On his experience writing episode eight:
Simply enjoyed the hell out of it. It was great.
I was a little anxious when we got into it on a number of levels. One, I was anxious, could I meet the deadline? Because I haven’t been doing very well in the last few years about meeting deadlines. And I was anxious about what it would feel like going back to this material I wrote in the ‘90′s. And I was anxious that I would even remember how to write a teleplay. I mean, it’s been more than a decade since I’ve done one. But it turned out to be fine. I wasn’t changing much, I was just moving it from one medium to another medium and making cuts and trims, which I did plenty of in my Hollywood days. I did meet the deadline, so that was good. And I remembered how to write a screenplay pretty well too.
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43 Comments
WiC,
I see that HBO has put up its preview summary for Episode 2, The Kings Road, and it is pretty spoiler-filled, including Bran’s fate and Dany’s post wedding-night strategy. Looks a lot like the version leaked a few weeks ago, so HBO is going with the let it all hang out route.
DH87Quote Reply
DH87, yeah, it also says that Ned leaves Westeros, which was an error I thought they would have fixed by now. Ah well, hopefully not too many people will read it. The “Next On” video wasn’t quite as spoiler-filled and I think more people watch that than read the synopsis.
Winter Is ComingQuote Reply
Poniewozik’s interview, as far as I know, is one of the best and most interesting that Martin has ever given. A very good read!
Herr FickQuote Reply
Winter Is Coming,
HBO/Talk moderators/insiders start a new thread for each episode on its forum, including the synopsis, every Wednesday, so I think we can expect it to be SOP. It’s going to shut down the “how could they kill a child” hue and cry over there pretty quickly. There’s already speculation that Dany’s wedding night may not have been so traumatic as it seems, but only you know that. :)
DH87Quote Reply
OMG, I love that the smiley cannot be spoiler tagged!
DH87Quote Reply
I am going to reed the whole interview during the Easter week-end. It would be delight, having red some parts of already, but to swallow the whole thing I need more time.
Aside that: I just rewatched first episode at HBOAdria, more I watch it, more I like it.
Benioff and Weiss have done fantastic job, indeed.
The RabbitQuote Reply
you know…you know…
SawyerQuote Reply
That’s a really great interview.
ScottsdaleSamQuote Reply
Great interview! Two things:
1. I’d like to read the version with spoilers.
2. GRRM’s idea about a story placed in Middle Earth’s future sounds great, I’d read it.
Alexander DubrovskyQuote Reply
That talk about his mother’s family and their lost fortune just tore me up inside …
It made feel horrible …
Phantomwriter05Quote Reply
“[For example] the arranged marriage, which you see constantly in the historical fiction and television show, almost always when there’s an arranged marriage, the girl doesn’t want it and rejects it and she runs off with the stable boy instead. This never fucking happened. It just didn’t.”
Preach George! There have been so many articles discussing the women’s initial positions in asoiaf and this faux- outrage at how their limitations are depicted is driving me batty. I absolutely think there are various elements in the story that are up for discussion and debate over stereotypes etc, but the female characters behaving in accordance with typical patriarchal society is a ridiculous thing to focus on.
uberstellarQuote Reply
I’d read that GRRM story about middle earth too. Sounds funny and kind of sad at the same time.
dizzy_34Quote Reply
Geez, I appreciate being spoiler-conscious but it sort of ruined parts of the interview.
“[Dramatic but spoilery future plot point redacted] will be fun. If we get to that. God willing, yeah. Later seasons, that’s always a high-class problem to have.”
Yeah, that’s very informative…..
VirausQuote Reply
Great interview, I am thrilled for his episode…
On a side note, I just freezeframed some of the shots of the opening credits ( the moving rings) and I love how they tell the backstory.
First one id the the doom of Valyria with the volcano erupting and the dragon (Targ) surviving. Then it shows the Andals bowing before it. Next we see the dragon defeated by Stag, Lion, wolf, Boar and finally Lion, Wolf, Swann and Boar bowing before the stag…. Great Stuff, but strange that they misplaced quite a few sigils…
Chris77Quote Reply
I’m gonna read one part every day until Saturday, so I have something to do while waiting for episode 2. The first part was great though. I hope HBO finds a way to get multiple seasons out of the later books, though a concern is the kids might rapidly out-age there characters…
ZackQuote Reply
Same here, I watched it 3 times and it was better each time. The more we get used to the show, the more we will be able to enjoy it for what it is, separate from the books.
On my 3rd viewing, I just realized how much I like Rory as The Hound! His voice and mannerisms were great, even in that very short scene (which was totally just-for-the-fans). Also, to people who worried about his make-up… that scene was from the pilot (notice Theon’s blond hair, and Ned’s different hair). I think The Hounds make-up will be better in future episodes.
LexQuote Reply
Great interview.
Very happy to see how well Martin understands Tolkien. I always had a feeling he does but i never read any details about it before.
Its very refreshing in this age where Tolkien`s Lord of the Rings is viewed as superficial good vs evil story by most people, (smacks China Mieville and Richard Morgan over the head) ironically, based on numerous bad copies of his work, not the work itself.
The Smiling KnightQuote Reply
There is a pretty nice cast/house summary separate from the HBO viewer guide here: http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/Game-of-Thrones-Houses-infographic-Westeros-101-f.jpg
TCQuote Reply
uberstellar,
Spot on!
Who was it who commented earlier “Catelyn was lucky with Ned; Lysa was unlucky with Jon Arryn”? Because that’s exactly what it is. Sometimes the girl is lucky and sometimes the girl is unlucky. But she always, always goes through with it. And her family don’t suddenly spring an arranged marriage on her – she always knew she wouldn’t choose her husband.
EleanorQuote Reply
Never knew that it was GRRM that wrote the Twilight show adaptation of “The Last Defender of Camelot”.
MormegilQuote Reply
Viraus,
What would you have the author do, spoil the Red Wedding or the Battle of the Blackwater for anyone reading an interview on an extremely mainstream news site? If you’ve read the books you can guess what GRRM might be talking about in those very few redacted spots. I didn’t think it made the interview any less fascinating.
EricQuote Reply
Slate is now our enemy.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/04/20/is-game-of-thrones-racist.aspx
nattyQuote Reply
natty,
I don’t think he’s was insulting.. He points out that the civilized knights are barbaric too, how the first ep ends.
AmandaQuote Reply
Amanda,
Maybe you are right. Nevertheless, the author get´s on my nerves.
Short answer: Yes they are. They can do what ever the f**k they want as long it is´nt against the law and nobody get´s hurt by it. – Don´t be such a do-gooder, Nina Shen Rastogi…
AbyssQuote Reply
I MUST know who is behind the @Queen_Cersei Twitter account. It’s brilliant. Could this be an HBO thing? If it’s a fan, it’s a brilliant fan who has Cersei down cold.
David ThomasQuote Reply
Eric,
No, I agree, spoiler-free is good. But you can refer to events obliquely without spoiling them. And a lot of the [redacted] points had absolutely no context that readers could use, so those points were totally wasted. Still an excellent interview- especially the bits about George’s childhood and his opinions of fantasy.
VirausQuote Reply
God, I hope we don’t go there. I am a dark-skinned person and I did not take offense. Plus, all the Dothraki are not really dark skinned in the TV adaptation. I was glad there were a bunch of varying skin tones in there. But, I have to admit, to go from Euro-looking white folks to your first glimpse of people of color and they are drinking, screwing and killing, is a little jarring. LOL.
They need to lighten up. We certainly know the great GRRM was not trying to consciously or unconsciously make some point about race. When I read the books, I saw the Dothraki as more Arab or Mediterranean looking.
There will always be people who bring this up. They had the same problem with Peter Jackson’s orcs/Uruk-Hai in the Rings trilogy. Ignore them. Please don’t feed their flames. That’s how a non issue becomes “A Thing.”
HollyoakQuote Reply
OMG, is Game of Thrones sexist? Is Game of Thrones racist?
The same debates raged when LOTR came out. As a society, we’ve become so paranoid about anything being remotely politically incorrect, we can’t even enjoy a good story anymore without freaking out.
Yawn…
LexQuote Reply
seems to me the article just exists because someone was bound to bring it up. their main criticism about the wedding has been pretty standard across the board. as i think it’s accepted at this point that it was a rather weak scene.
feyrbandQuote Reply
Slate attempts to have resonable conversation about GOT in latest podcast: http://www.slate.com/id/2289875/
Nina of the above linked article talks but Troy P is not present.
Ser Lemon CakesQuote Reply
As much as it shames me to admit, so do I!
dimensionallyTQuote Reply
What a great interview with GRRM – good to hear his thoughts on fantasy and history and his interesting and somewhat sad family history. Especially glad to read of his love and appreciation for Tolkien – I always get the impression that Tolkien is greatly misunderstood and underrated by many modern fantasy authors and readers, when really the things they dislike aren’t necessarily features of Tolkien’s own work but rather things that have been exaggerated by his many, many inferior imitators. Seems GRRM thinks the same. Excellent! :D
A Bear_A BearQuote Reply
Agree.
BroQuote Reply
The fact that Boromir is one of his favorite characters is amusing since Boromir is now playing Ned.
TheWatcherontheWallQuote Reply
Eleanor,
“Always, always goes through with it”
erm, except Lyanna… :p
But I guess that goes to show what a big deal that was.
userjQuote Reply
About the Slate article…
I don’t think they go to far in questioning whether the portrayal of the dothraki is racist. I actually have always been somewhat troubled by the portrayal of most of the “cultures” beyond the narrow sea in the books – there is more than a whiff of Orientalism about the whole thing. First off, almost everyone is pretty much just… evil. GRRM doesn’t stop to tell us anything really positive about the Dothraki, or Slaver’s bay, nor does such seem to exist – instead we hear in excruciating detail how the corpses of children rot on crucifixes and the women of innocent herding tribes are raped and slaughtered. In short, everyone outside of Westeros is painted with a black brush, whereas denizens of Westeros (or those from Westeros) with few exceptions are painted in shades of grey. It does help to expedite Danaerys’ story, in that her enemies are so CLEARLY in the wrong and deserving of conquest, but it’s a little… Lawrence of Arabia for my tastes. “Hero from the WEST tames the DARK, SAVAGE and CRUEL EAST.” And this is coming from someone who is a huuuge fan of Daenerys…
So yeah I get where the article writer is coming from. If they stick to the books, it’s gonna seem racist and orientalist, in the same way that 300 was. There’s no way around it. I wonder if they can try to add more… shades of grey, and back off a bit from the ridiculous over-the-top evil of places like Slaver’s Bay to make things a bit less… well, racist. :p
userjQuote Reply
natty,
I think the writer is being uncessarily hysterical. Ifound nothing racist about the Dothraki at all. They might be ‘savages’, but they certainly are comptent, brave and smart.
Speaking as a person of African origin. I would rather see dark /Black people portrayed as a bit rough around the edges, yet imbued with intelligence and pride and idependence. Than dark skinned people/Blacks who are refined, yet without any sense of self and who are milksops and always bowing and scrapping.
I think the whole speach about Khal Drogo’s braid from Viserys shows what a great man he is. Further the author of the article might also be interested to note that ‘wedding’ night scene between Lucrezia and her husband in the Borgias, was even worse than what happened to Dany in Thrones. It was all context of the story. There was nothing racism involved.
Victoria ColeQuote Reply
How come all the drug dealers in the wire were black. Racism!
If it’s fake it is always racism, but if it is real, it is not.
Actually, I may be suffering from some historic idealism… Yep, I am. Lots of people have have complained about it. Everything is in question, and might be “racist”. Part of it has to do with an imbalance, not enough racial variety of the people creating material. (Which may be because they are pushed away by the industry) Part of it has to do with people just having racial goggles and seeing it in everything.
The Wire not winning any awards? THAT’s racism. I think we should be more concerned with racism in real life than in stories.
salukQuote Reply
Linda from Westeros.org wrote an excellent article about the accuses of reacism and sexism towards GOT. I think she hit that nail square on the head. Nothing more to say about this vexed topic.
AbyssQuote Reply
The Dothraki are portrayed as sterotypical ‘savages’ at the beginning of book + tv series because we are seeing them from an outsider’s/Dany’s/Viserys’ perspective. I’m sure as we and Dany get to know them, that viewpoint will change, as it does in the book. I always viewed it as a sort of counterpoint to the increasingly violent and messed up Westeros storyline
And to be honest, I think that with this series the only racism is in the mind of the viewer who expects to see it. Racism requires some sort of perceived hierarchy, of one group as being superior to another. But in GRRMs world every group is as vile, stupid and cruel as the next…
Anyway, back on topic, I loved those interviews! Especially his views on ‘bad’ fantasy writers; I completely agree there.
EvilPicnicQuote Reply
This bit about Martin’s own life kind of reminded me of Viserys and Daenerys at GoT
“This big house my mother had been born in and her family had grown up in, but had lost. And other people lived in what had been our house. And I think it always gave me this, this sense of a lost golden age of, you know, now we were poor and we lived in the projects and we lived in an apartment. We didn’t even have a car, but God we were… once we were royalty!”
It was indeed an awesome read; very insightful… even if I disagree with him about Lost :P
KhyleQuote Reply
Excellent read. Love hearing Martin’s comments on writing, especially when it relates to his TV and Literary views at the same time.
Racism/Sexism never once crossed my mind reading the books.
I hate LotR. (Truth! Not being a troll!) But I would read Martin’s fan fic for sure.
Also @saluk: The Wire Season 2 had wiggers selling drugs! — Just to be a dick :p
TayleronQuote Reply
Hollyoak,
Nah, it’s perfectly valid for someone to look, and come up with some ideas. The reviewer has to say something different from the next ten — and if he’s got the lens of being a Person of Color — that’s a different angle. Still, he’s still watching the next episode, i betcha. The lady asking “is GoT sexist?” may not…[which would be a shame]
Dothraki’s political situation seemed perfectly Turkish to me, but you could have made them Vikingtoned and I’d have been happy.
KimQuote Reply