Riverrun filming update, plus GRRM’s struggles to keep the TV show from influencing the books

We’ve got a roundup of news and quotes for you today. First, filming at Riverrun continues, according to the dutiful observers at Irish Thrones (they’ve previously tweeted pics of the set). In fact, it seems like the production is doubling down.

It seems Riverrun may play a bigger role in Season 6 than we at first assumed, as the crew has been shooting there for quite a while now.

Elsewhere, Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) spoke to fans at the recent Web Summit, where he revealed that he hasn’t read the Song of Ice and Fire books and refused to comment on what’s in store for Davos (“I would literally have to kill you. If I told you, they’d kill me”). He did, however, have some interesting things to say about George R.R. Martin’s writing process. Apparently, now that Game of Thrones has been on the air for years, the author is struggling to separate his own ideas about the characters from how they’re portrayed onscreen.

"He’s finding it difficult to separate himself from what he’s seeing on television. He has no choice but to start hearing voices of the people he’s writing for. It’s not going to affect their journey’s but it will affect their character."

I’m not entirely sure what Cunningham means about the TV show affecting the “character” of the…characters…but his comment about it not affecting their journeys tracks with what Martin has been saying during his visit to Northwestern University, where he was honored with an alumni award. Martin continues to make interesting quotes during his visit.

"I’ve been hearing [the Game of Thrones producers] come up behind me for years, and the question is, How can I make myself write faster? I think, by now, the answer is, I can’t. I write at the pace I write, and what the show is doing is not going to change what the books are…I started writing about these characters and this world in 1991, and we didn’t have the first meetings to create the show until 2008, so I got like a 17-year head start!"

Other notable quotes from Martin’s visit to Northerwestern:

• Martin is staying humble about his late-in-life success. “Game of Thrones right now is the most successful television show in the world, but it won’t always be. Three years from now, some other television show will be the most successful show in the world.”
• In fact, he’s glad that his success didn’t come when he was younger, as he’s not sure he could have handled it. “It’s made me have a certain sympathy for the teenage assholes that are running around out there, the Justin Biebers and the Lindsay Lohans — no wonder these people are crazy!”
• He reiterated that the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire will be modeled on the ending of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King—a protracted conclusion that acknowledges the messiness of victory. “You can’t just fulfill a quest and then pretend life is perfect,” he said. “Life doesn’t work that way.”

Also, because this topic is legally required to crop up in all interviews with Game of Thrones cast members, Liam Cunningham weighed in on the Jon Snow question. “Jon Snow is deader than dead,” he said. Okay, then.

Next: Actresses behind Cersei, Melisandre, and Ygritte land new screen roles

H/T Irish Examiner, Vulture