Check out the full panel and interviews from MCM Comic Con

At MCM London Comic Con this weekend, Eugene Simon (Lancel Lannister), Ian McEhlinney (Barristan Selmy), and Ian Beattie (Meryn Trant) made appearances on behalf of the show. For McEhlinney and Beattie, this is something of a bittersweet turn, as neither of them survived last season. Simon is still kicking, though for how much longer, we don’t know. (Though I suppose you could say that about anyone.)

Flicks & the City put up their 30-minute interview panel from over the weekend for us to enjoy, which supplements the audio interviews we posted here. Subjects covered include their experiences last season, as well as the actors’ theories about what’s coming up in Season 6.

We’ve heard on and off from lower tiered actors on the show, especially those who joined last season for the first time, that they only get their scenes when they are sent scripts. I had thought that a bit odd, but lots of Game of Thrones’ security procedures are different than the usual standard practice. This is the first time I’ve heard from one of the actors who has been there from the beginning (McElhinney) that this wasn’t the case in the earlier seasons. This means that the policy was probably instituted later in an attempt to contain leaks.

Beattie’s take on his death is not to be missed. It comes pretty early on in the video, but his horror at Arya’s Tarantino-like actions is priceless. But not nearly as much as his horror at the twist of discovering the character he played was a pedophile.

I figured that Meryn was going to bite the dust somewhere and David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] – they’re pretty classy guys – they phoned me to tell that ‘Meryn, that’s your lot, chum’. But they said you’d see a really nasty side to the character and have a great death. So I thought I was going to get to kill someone popular. I thought I was going to get kill Bronn or something. I was reading the script and I was like ‘oh my god, oh no!’ It was awful. If somebody touched my children – let me tell you – it would take that person a lot longer to die than Meryn, really. So they were extraordinarily upsetting scenes to do and the biggest challenge of my acting career bar none.

In a way I was so grateful to the boys for giving me this opportunity because it’s what an actor lives for, to get scenes like this. The actual end when Maisie and I were filming. […] She’s absolutely wonderful, we decided very early on in this particular scene we had to go for it – and we went for it. I had complete trust in her and she had complete trust in me.

Speaking of deaths, it seems like McEhlinney is a little more at peace with his character being killed off by the show earlier than in the books. But not much.

If I’m honest, I was a bit disappointed by that. I felt I should have known, it wouldn’t have made any difference but I felt that as a matter of just courtesy, I should have known. I was disappointed because I had enjoyed playing the part and I was looking forward to getting more meat in the part and I had to dared to presume that I would at least go into season six. I obviously shouldn’t have dared to presume. So be it. The deed is done and I’m on to other things and that’s that. But I do miss it. I would have happily stayed on.

As for Eugene Simon, he did not confirm his character’s fate, but he does mention that the sparrows still have “a bone to pick” in King’s Landing.

Here’s the full 45 minute panel video as well.

Next: Game of Thrones filming at Knocklayde, Northern Ireland