Game of Thrones cast and crew members talk seasons 7 and 8

Tomorrow, TIME is releasing a double-issue all about Game of Thrones. Journalist Daniel D’addario spent a lot of time with the cast and crew on the set of season 7, and got all kinds of inside access. Let’s go behind the scenes with him as the cast and crew talk about their characters, season 7, and the end of the show.

Let’s start with Kit Harington, who says that season 7 represents a “huge seismic shift” for Jon Snow, although he trails off before he reveals too much. “He’s still the same Jon, but he grows up.”

Harington also reflected on his relationship with the character over the years. “I made mistakes and felt that he wasn’t interesting enough,” he said. “That sounds weird, but I’ve never been quite content with him. Maybe that’s what makes him him. That angst.”

Emilia Clarke, for her part, doesn’t seem too affected by angst. D’addario watched her spend a lot of time riding a giant mechanical rig that represents Drogon, the biggest of her dragons. “We knew it would be a mechanical bull,” said Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff. “We didn’t know it would be 40 ft. in the air and six degrees of motion with cameras that swirl. It’s like the thing NASA built to train the astronauts.”

If Clarke is bored by the weeks she’s spent on that thing, “getting blasted with water and fake snow and whatever else they decide to chuck at her through the fans,” she doesn’t show it. “I’m 5-ft.-nothing, I’m a little girl,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Emilia, climb those stairs, get on that huge thing, we’ll harness you in, and then you’ll go crazy.’ And you’re like, ‘Hey, everybody! Now who’s shorty?!’”

As a sidenote, while the rigs that represent the dragons getting bigger every year, it sounds like they’ve finally reached their peak. “Now the dragon doesn’t get any bigger,” producer Bernadette Caulfield said, “so we know that much.” Finally, D’addario notes that Alan Taylor was directing Clarke while she was on the bull, which means she was filming the sixth episode of the season.

Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) were on hand, too, to discuss the twisted relationship between their characters that, despite it being all kinds of deviant, has withstood the test of time. “Cersei’s always wanted to be him,” Headey said of Jaime. “Therefore, for her, that relationship is completion. There’s been an envy, because he was born with privilege just for being a man. I think their love was built on respect.”

Headey clearly loves talking about the topic, Coster-Waldau a little less so:

"I’ve never really gone too deep into the whole sister-brother thing because I can’t use that information. I have to look at her as the woman he loves and desires. Lena’s a very good actress, and that’s kind of what carries the whole thing. I have two older sisters. I do not want to go there. It’s just too weird."

It’s a little surprising that Coster-Waldau hasn’t reconciled himself to the nature of the Jaime-Cersei relationship after all this time, but then again, if there’s one relationship on the show that’s difficult to stomach, that’s the one.

Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), meanwhile, is happy to be on a fantasy show that breaks new ground. “This was the first time in this genre that somebody my size was an actually multidimensional being, flesh and blood without the really long beard, without the pointy shoes, without the asexuality,” he said. Tyrion, D’addario points out, is a character who is anything but asexual. He wants sex and wine and pleasure, but beyond that, he wants love and respect. The last two things are harder to come by, but Tyrion has his coping mechanisms.

"He covers it up with alcohol, he covers it up with humor, he does his best to maintain a modicum of sanity and he perseveres. He’s still alive. Anyone who’s still alive on our show is pretty smart."

So interviews with cast members is all well and good, but did anything say anything about what’s coming in season 7 or beyond? Read on.

Next: Of wolves, dragons, and the series finale of Game of Thrones