Alliser Thorne is not very popular right now. The last time Game of Thrones fans got a look at him, he was shoving a dagger into Jon Snow chest and whispering “for the Watch” before leaving the 998th Lord Commander to bleed out in the snow. With the possible exception of Olly and Ramsay Bolton, Thorne may be one of the most hated Thrones character still alive by the end of Season 5.
Owen Teale, the actor who plays Thorne, is feeling the burn a bit. “I’ll always be the man who killed Jon Snow,” he told Athinorama, a Greek publication that sat down with Teale while he was in Greece to shoot a movie called Nocturne. Teale says that he’s already been recognized by a few of the locals, and it’s not hard to imagine him receiving a few long hard looks while fans work through what happened in “Mother’s Mercy.”
Because this is an interview with a performer from Game of Thrones, Athinorama asked Teale to weigh in on the ongoing debate over Jon Snow’s survival. Unsurprisingly, the actor couldn’t give any new insight, saying only that he didn’t know anything and was relieved that he didn’t have to tell any lies. He did, however, compliment the show on its willingness to force the audience to deal with feelings of death and loss. If Jon Snow were resurrected, Teale opined, the show would risk becoming “a soap opera that does not know how to finish.”
Of course, the guy who killed Jon Snow would say that.
The other big takeaway from the interview is that Teale will return for Season 6, although he isn’t entirely sure when he’ll be filming. Most fans could have guessed that Alliser Thorne would show up again next year—after all, with Sam departing for Oldtown and Jon for the afterlife, there aren’t many characters left who can fill us as to what’s going on at the Wall—but it’s nice to have confirmation.
Next: The set for the Wall may become a permanent tourist attraction in Northern Ireland