Video: Actors behind Bran, Meera, Arya, and Jaqen H’ghar tease Season 6

After being on hiatus for Season 5, Bran and company will be back for Game of Thrones Season 6. It looks like Bran will have a big part to play in upcoming episodes, and we’ll probably get to see plenty of Meera and Hodor as well. Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran) and Ellie Kendrick (Meera) sat down for an interview and answered questions about what it was like to return to the set after a year away, and what kind of experiences await their characters in Season 6.

Hempstead Wright kicked things off: “It was quite a shock to the system, having been away for a whole year, and watched the show become that much more massive and then come back onto it–it was nice–but it was slightly nerve-wracking.” They both seem quite happy to be back, with Kendrick adding: “It was lovely to be back on the show, though, because its been going so long there is a real community of cast and crew who return every year so it was really nice to see the friendly, familiar faces after having been away for a year.”

Hempstead Wright agrees that Bran has a huge role to play in the upcoming season:

"So, we’ve had this year away from if all, and Bran has basically just been in this cave with the Three-eyed raven who’s this kind of wizard-type figure, and this magical sage who can harness the power of the weirwood trees to look into the past and the present and the future. And Bran also possesses this ability but he’s a bit of a novice with it and needs some guidance. We’ve had a year where Bran has been trained like Luke Skywalker."

Nice parallel between the Three-eyed raven and Yoda there.

Ellie Kendrick talks about Meera’s difficult situation this season: “Yes, the series starts for Meera in a pretty bleak place. Her brother has died, she’s stuck in a cave, the boy she is supposed to be looking after is going off on these weird mind trips, and she’s just stuck with Hodor for conversation.” But she also hints at the expected drama we know is coming: “She knows she has to take care of Bran no matter what, and that is a responsibility we will see tested to its limits this season.”

Kendrick also chats about the action sequence with the wights in S4: “He (Bran) doesn’t do anything. He just gets dragged around . . . It was really strenuous. I love those kind of jobs when you really have to push yourself because you feel like you are actually working hard doing a real job instead of sometimes when I feel like a child play acting or something, it makes me feel like I have a real job.”

When pressed to describe the upcoming action for Bran and Meera in S6, the actors gracefully declined. No matter. The new season is, thankfully, very close at hand.

The same outlet also interviewed Maisie Williams (Arya) and Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H’ghar). Check out the video:

Williams didn’t miss a beat, did she? Interview: “Valar morghulis.” Williams: “Valar dohaeris.” She knows her stuff.

Williams’ comments about her contact lenses are very interesting. Not that they hurt—we could have figured that out. It’s interesting that she says her eyes got more tired “towards the end of the season,” which implies that she was wearing the lenses for most of the filming. Some fans are hoping that Arya will get over her blindness, but it sounds like she may be stuck like that.

Equally interesting are her comments about how she had her “scenes with Tom” at the beginning of the season, and that towards the end of the year, she was “with Faye a lot.” She’s probably referring to Faye Marsay, who plays the Waif. Now, as we saw in the Season 5 finale, Jaqen H’ghar and the Waif are the same person, but this makes it sound like the character will spend the first chunk of the season in one form and the second chunk in another. Also, note that Williams says that a “couple of our scenes this year were [shot] apart.” Generally, whenever we see Jaqen onscreen, Arya is nearby. Will Jaqen get some solo stuff in Season 6?

Moving on, Williams gave an appraisal of her journey throughout Season 6:

"Arya gets really broken down and she goes through a really, really difficult process and she’s totally stripped back. And we’ve seen that before but this time it’s a lot more physical, and…you really get to see her almost break and almost give up. There’s moments in this series where she’s really vulnerable."

Sounds like a good time. Note that she also says that “to come back from that is amazing,” so Arya might pull herself out of these dire straights by the year’s end.

Finally, Wlaschiha’s comments about Jaqen possibly having a “hidden agenda” for training Arya is intriguing. Is Wlaschiha being deliberately mysterious (it is what he was hired for), or is he hinting that we’ll get a better look at the Faceless Men’s bigger plans?