The insanely tall, lanky, ginger-haired talk show host Conan O’Brien is back again doing live shows at Comic-Con San Diego. This evening he taped his season finale (airing this Sunday night) with a large company of the Game of Thrones cast and crew as his guests. On location at the luxurious Spreckles theater, Conan and Andy Richter opened up with hilarious Comic Con-themed sketches. Conan show clips may soon become available to watch here.
Conan’s stage was soon packed with Game of Thrones notables, including showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and actors John Bradley (Sam), Conleth Hill (Varys), Liam Cunningham (Davos), Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran), Kristian Nairn (Hodor, sob), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), and Faye Marsay (the Waif). Conan starts with Cunningham, congratulating him on the longevity of Ser Davos and asking him how an actor might avoid getting “offed” on the show. Cunningham replied:
"David (Benioff) and D.B. (Weiss) have a sick sense of humor, like mob bosses in New York city. They invite you to dinner, you go to dinner, and you don’t come back from dinner. Don’t answer the phone."
Conan then moved on to Hempstead-Wright, wondering if the rest of the cast resented his role being delivered almost entirely from a reclining position, and how so many fans in the Twitterverse blamed Bran for Hodor’s death. Hempstead-Wright seemed to accept the blame for his character, referring to a lot of “F**k you, Bran” messages from fans.
Conan then turned to Nairn, asking him if he ‘interpreted’ his character’s demise as Bran’s fault and if he thinks Hodor would blame Bran: “Me and Hodor are two different things . . . I don’t think Hodor would have blamed him.” Nairn’s response drew a massive cheer from the crowd. Nairn also said his last day on set was “tremendously sad,” but he lives in Belfast so he can “come torture Bran and the cast whenever he wants,” a statement that won him an affectionate head-on-the-shoulder moment from Hempstead-Wright.
Nairn went on to explain how he hears ‘hold the door’ from fans all of the time, how many will run and hold doors open for him, and how he stole a souvenir piece of a stunt door on his last day on set. He also explained what was in the little leather satchel Hodor wore from the first season: “Hodor has carried that satchel for six seasons . . . and nobody knows what is in it . . . it is Rickon’s nuts.”
When asked if a fan ever told him that they loved the character of Ramsay, Iwan Rheon couldn’t remember that happening. As for Kit Harington actually slugging him during the Ramsay beating scene, Rheon said: “You want it to look real, so if you don’t get punched a couple of times you’re not doing it properly.”
John Bradley talked a bit more about being costume-pranked by Benioff and Weiss and other members of the cast. Bradley was a target, he realized, because he was constantly belittling other cast members on how obviously they were being tricked by the showrunners. When John got a new script for Season 6 which involved Sam being dressed in resplendent purple and pink clothes, he bought it “because Sam might just dress like a prick at home.” The prank went so far as to send him to a costume fitting in Belfast. “I looked like Elmer the Patchwork Elephant,” Bradley chuckled, “and David and Dan complain about wasted budgets!”
In a funny moment, Conleth Hill (sporting a thick coif of beautifully silver hair) talked about how he adores Peter Dinklage and how “hilarious and devilish” his costar can be:
"I’m very trusting. He (Dinklage) will will give me a ‘fact’ and I’ll use it and (when if turns out to be false) be humiliated, and Peter will come over and say ‘why did you believe that?’"
Turning to Benioff and Weiss, Conan asked how their working relationship is holding up after six long seasons. Benioff replied: “Dan is so nice but when he gets drinking he gets scary and suddenly says ‘I’m going to kill you’ and then he’s fine again.” When asked about how the 24/7 bloody carnage of Game of Thrones saturates their lives and how they escape it, they reply:
"It’s hard not to think about Monty Python. The show is always 10 degrees away from a Monty Python sketch. We think ‘it would be so much fun if we did the scene this way . . .’"
Conan also asked Benioff and Weiss to tell him how the story ends. No dice, of course. No dice.