Game of Thrones cast and crew tease “The Dragon and the Wolf”

“When I heard I was going to be doing the penultimate episode of the season, I went, ‘Oh, good! That’s the big one!'” director Alan Taylor told The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview. “I got to Belfast and started looking at the other scripts and went, ‘Oh, mine’s not the big one. That’s the big one.'”

Taylor directed “Beyond the Wall,” the latest, action-packed episode of the show. It was indeed a “big one.” But according to him, the season 7 finale — entitled “The Dragon and the Wolf” — will push the plot forward “in an even more dramatic way. It takes a huge leap forward. It keeps building.”

“It was really surreal,” said Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont), when talking about filming the season 7 finale, an episode that promises to bring together a lot of characters from a variety of storylines. “I think it’s hard for fans to appreciate how dissipated and separated we’ve all been over the course of seven or eight years. There are large numbers of these actors who have never acted together before…You pass each other, but to actually be able to be in the same space, to have fun together, to live in the same hotels, to act in the scenes primarily? For me, it felt like it was part of the beginning of the end in a very good way. In a very lovely way.”

"The reason we’re starting to group together and all starting to be part of the same storylines is because the end is nigh. That’s the movement towards it. What you do as actors is you say, ‘Fucking hell. Can you believe how this has been?’ You share your delight and how much of a ball the whole gig has been. Sometimes it’s easy to think, ‘Is it just me?’ And then you bump into all of the other actors and we all feel the same. It’s very hard, because we know it’s not going to be there for much longer. It’s all going to go at some point — well, we know at what point. You want to relish it while it’s there, man. It’s a lovely feeling. It’s like someone you have known for a great deal of time but you’ve never had the chance to really see them and shake their hand and be part of the same thing and give them a hug. For everyone, it was a special time."

Aw, Iain Glen is making me a little wistful. Fans are going to upset when the show is over, too, but for the actors — especially ones like Glen who have been there since the beginning — it will be an especially difficult transition.

Anyway, the reason “The Dragon and the Wolf” will have so many characters in one place is because it’ll feature a huge summit meeting between Teams Targaryen, Lannister, and Stark. You can see some of the assembled characters above. “It’s going to be interesting, I can tell you that,” said Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane).

"It’s like Game of Thrones is competing with Game of Thrones, in the way that we feel everybody has to take it up another notch to make the fans happy. I really think they have done that this year. When you have a battle in episode two, and a huge one in episode four … these are big, big sequences. Somehow, it feels like the thing on Game of Thrones now is, if anybody comes up with a [great] idea, whatever the cost, the ambition, everyone has to say yes. We’re competing with ourselves. Episode seven is maybe the longest one. We’re talking about a feature-length episode."

At 79 minutes, “The Dragon and the Wolf” will be the longest episode in the show’s history. But what will it do with that time? “I think what everybody imagines, they’re going to get it, and maybe even a little bit more,” said Richard Dormer (Richard Dormer), whose character is staying behind at the Wall. “It’s the last episode, so things are really ramping up. It’s going to be truly epic. You’re going to wish you were watching on a massive cinema screen.”

It airs Sunday at 9:00 p.m. EST on HBO. See you there.

Next: We break down the trailer for 'The Dragon and the Wolf' shot by shot

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