Liam Cunningham (Davos) hypes the Battle of the Bastards

All week we’ve been previewing the upcoming Battle of the Bastards, Game of Thrones‘ most ambitious attempt yet to stage a proper medieval battle. But the battle between Ramsay and Jon isn’t the only drama on the menu. Remember, the Stark forces are camped in the same spot Stannis was this time last year, when he decided to go along with Melisandre’s plan to burn Shireen alive. Will Davos figure out what happened? Will he kill Melisandre?

Sadly, in his latest interview, Liam Cunningham (Davos) is far too busy hyping the actual battle to spend any time on his own storyline. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he focused in on the upcoming clash of Bolton versus Stark Snow, and how much the scope of it blew him away.

"I remember when they showed it to us, it was like a Hollywood blockbuster. It was something you would expect from a $200 million movie. I remember having a joke with (director) Miguel at the time, saying, “Well, you’re aiming pretty low here, aren’t you?” We were both laughing about it, but he said, “We’re going to see if we can get as much of that as we possibly can.”"

Cunningham is an avid Twitter user, and apparently during the month they dedicated to filming these scenes, he watched some of us obsessives as we followed along (as the days wore on, it became clearer and clearer this was going to be an epic scene) and was amused at our reactions.

"…ironically, I saw a tweet online. As we know, the episode is called “Battle of the Bastards,” but I saw someone calling it “Bastard Bowl,” as in Super Bowl. I smiled when I read it, because the ironic thing is, where we shot it is almost like a bowl. It’s like a valley. We were so lucky on the weather as well. The little bit of rain we did get turned the entire set into… it’s like [the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom], which I believe was on this week. It’s famed for its mud and its music. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the music, but we did have the mud!"

But Cunningham’s main focus, like everyone else’s, is the level of horsemanship and horse stunts that were done as part of this hour of television, which, as far as everyone seems to be concerned, is beyond anything attempted on the small screen before.

"We had some extraordinary horsemen from Europe to do some of these stunts. Without giving anything away, there were some stunts done on this that I specifically did not want to see being shot, because I wanted to see the finished product unspoiled. I know a couple of things that they were up to, and what I was being told about was jaw-dropping stuff. The horse work, which you can see a tiny amount of in the [preview], I think it’s going to be extraordinary on this. It’s a very, very, very large portion of the episode. You’ll have to remember, there was a lot of quiet expectation [with “Blackwater”] because of the whole wildfire thing, and there was a feel of something bad about to happen, even when the battle happened off camera. There’s a huge amount happening on camera in this one."

TV shows nominated themselves for Emmys this week, and HBO offered Kit Harington for consideration in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category. Harington has not garnered a nomination thus far in the series, and he actually spent quite a bit of time off-camera in the middle of Season 6. But Cunningham thinks his work in this episode will blow people away.

"I would be very, very surprised if Mr. Harington isn’t taking up a statue at the end of this. The amount of stuff I saw Kit doing out there… his fight work. His stunt work. He’s like a dancer when he moves. I think he’s blossomed from a young man into this fantastic character that he’s playing in this. I said it to him at the time, that his work is beautifully subtle on this. I’ve watched him from viewing him, and also working with him on this season, just blossoming as an actor. And that’s one of the things an older actor can admire about quite a few of the younger actors on this show. But to watch him blossom like that, especially in this episode? It’s going to be jaw-dropping."

As for the making of the scene, Cunninghm says that everyone deserves accolades for what they went through, both on the writing side and the acting side. Many actors suffered minor injuries in service of simulating major ones. “Let’s just say that when you’re dealing with portraying war, if the medic is sitting back playing crossword, we’re not trying hard enough.” Whatever else we think of this episode, it certainly sounds like everyone gave their all to it.