Audio: Former Game of Thrones stars tease Season 7 filming in Iceland, the end of the show

If you’ve had a role on Game of Thrones during the last six years, the odds are good that your characters is now dead. And that’s okay, because the show is so popular that former cast members are sought-after properties at cons. They could make careers touring and talking to fans if they wanted.

A trio of former cast members—Ian Beattie (Meryn Trant), Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy), Ian Gelder (Kevan Lannister), and Eugene Michael Simon (Lancel Lannister)—recently stopped by the MCM Comic Con in London, which ran from October 28-30. Audioboom recorded a good chunk of their panel. It’s a fun listen, because these guys are articulate and interesting. (Beattie, in particular, reveals himself to be a huge GoT nerd.) Also, because they still talk to members of the cast and crew, they’re in the know about a couple of things coming in Season 7. Have a listen, and we’ll go through the major talking points below.

I’m charmed by how enthusiastic Beattie is about the show’s mythology, what with his theory about Bran possessing the dragons and his refutation about the Tyrion-is-a-Sekret-Targaryen fan theory. He knows his stuff. And as one of the few cast members to have read the Song of Ice and Fire books in their entirety, McElhinney is no slouch, either.

One of the more notable parts was when McElhinney talks about the show’s filming schedule for Season 7. Here he is around 10:50:

"I do know…that they are going to film a lot in Iceland in this coming season, and they actually started the shoot later than normal because they’re going to shoot through Christmas into the new year. And most of that I think is going to be in Iceland. So there’s obviously a very big story coming up with the White Walkers. But I would anticipate that in…Season 7…that’s when that will be resolved…Whether the Wall stands or not, who knows, I think they will defeat the White Walkers."

I dunno about the bit about the White Walkers being defeated this year, but his talk about filming in Iceland tracks with reports that the production will spend time there in January, when the snows are falling thick. If they’re filming “a lot” in Iceland, the White Walkers do indeed loom large next year.

Also very interesting is McElhinney talking about a conversation he once had with George R.R. Martin. Like many fans, McElhinney wanted to know about the degree to which the plot of the show will diverge from that of the books. He suggested that the two will split but ultimately end up in the same place. However, Martin “would kind of hope that they didn’t…He didn’t mind, and he wouldn’t be surprised, if the series went to a different place simply because it’s governed by…different kinds of storytelling.”

Audioboom also broke the full interview down into several smaller, more manageable chunks. Check out some of the highlights below.

First, Beattie talks about the nature of the show’s final two seasons.

Beattie makes a couple of important points here.

• In his view, Seasons 7 and 8 aren’t so much two separate seasons but rather “one season split into two seasons…Seven episodes next year…and six episodes for the last season.” That tracks with how shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men have handled their final years, and has implications for how we should experience the story. Season 7 may be the calm (relatively speaking) before the storm of Season 8.
• On the foresight of showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss: “David and Dan told HBO that they needed exactly 13 hours to finish it…They knew exactly how long they needed to end this show, to finish this storyline. And HBO asked them, ‘Well, can you split in to two? Can you do seven and six?’ And they said, ‘Yes, okay.'”

This sheds some interesting light on the behind-the-scenes machinations between this final two years of the show.

Next: Beattie on spoilers, of which there are plenty this year.

The basic takeaway here is that Beattie does not like spoilers. “To me it’s like destroying your pleasure.” Moving on…

Here’s McElhinney’s talk about Season 7 filming in Iceland excerpted.

Side note: I love the way British people pronounce the word “film.”

Now, Beattie and Eugene Simon predict the ending of Game of Thrones. They are not fans of the traditional “Daenerys on the Iron Throne” ending.

Is Simon gunning for an ending where everyone’s dead? Could happen.

Below, Ian Beattie gives his thoughts on “the golden age of television” through which we are currently living.

Continuing in that vein, Beattie talks about how Game of Thrones is setting “the benchmark” for TV. “I defy anybody to tell me they’ve seen anything better on television than Season 6, Episode 9, ‘The Battle of the Bastards,'” he says.

Finally, Eugene Simon predicts that Season 7 will be “epic.” I think we’re all hoping for the best.

Beattie certainly had a lot to say on this panel. Naturally, he misses being on the show, but he found a silver lining.

"For me, the only good thing about not being in Game of Thrones anymore…is that I don’t know what’s going to happen next."