Richard Dormer interview: Did Beric Dondarrion die on the Wall?

The explosive conclusion of Game of Thrones season 7 left viewers with several questions. To start, the fates of two beloved characters — Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion — were left unknown. Did they die when the Night King used Zombie Viserion to blast apart the Wall? Actor Richard Dormer, who plays Dondarrion, chatted with inews about the million-dollar question.

“Well now, that is the question and I’m not allowed to say–that’s not a yes or a no,” Dormer said. “I think it would be a pretty uncool death for both those characters if they did die in the wall. You would expect something a bit more dramatic or to at least see them die.”

Game of Thrones is known to do the unexpected, but I know I’d be surprised if we don’t see these two back for season 8, resplendent beards and all.

Helen Sloan – HBO

Dormer really enjoyed his time filming with the group inews dubs the ‘Magnificent Seven’ as they went wight-hunting north of the Wall, although the terrain made the experience grueling.

"It was pretty grim, stuck up in a mountain in the pouring rain in Belfast, in the pouring rain, sweating and fighting zombies. In between scenes we had great fun. Me and the boys formed a little band. We’re just playing round, you’ve gotta kill the time because there’s a lot of waiting around to do, so we would just go into our little cabin when we weren’t shooting and we’d just get out the ukuleles the guitars and whatever and we’d all just jam, you know? It was good fun. You just see us going off on tour when shooting finishes."

There’s video proof of that, by the way:

Although he appears on the show, Dormer hasn’t actually seen the new season of Game of Thrones just yet. “I’m about to get into it, because I want to watch it before season eight,” he said. “I want to catch up on everything, it’s just that I’m so busy, I haven’t had the chance.”

We’re not surprised that Dormer is so busy, as he plays the leading man in the new BBC1 cop drama called Rellik. Dormer’s character is a facially-disfigured detective, so he has to wear prosthetics during production. Speaking to RadioTimes, Dormer recalled callingThrones costar Rory McCann, who wears a facial prosthetic as the Hound, to ask for advice.

"I phoned him (McCann) and said I have to have this thing on and he just told me: ‘you’re f****d mate.’ He told me to keep squeezing it to get the sweat out because if it builds up it starts to fall away from the face. It’s pretty grotesque. It was two hours to put on – we got it down to about an hour and a half towards the end and about half an hour to take off."

Dormer hated the prosthetic. “It was horrible because you really start to overheat because three quarters of your head is covered so there’s nowhere to sweat so it becomes a little bag of sweat on your head. In the middle of a scene I would smile and I would just squirt. It was as if half of my face is paralysed, every time I smile I have this little mask, it was strange.” After five months of suffering through that, Dormer even said he wouldn’t return to Rellik if the series gets another season. “I honestly don’t want to put that face on again.”

RadioTimes also pressed Dormer on Dondarrion’s season 7 fate in “The Dragon and the Wolf,” but the actor remained coy. “I do know but I have been told not to say—because it would give away whether Beric Dondarrion survives the collapse of The Wall.”

Finally, he offered a more interesting explanation for why he hasn’t watched season 7 yet. “Myself, Rory and Paul Kaye all agreed not to watch it between the times we were in it because we didn’t want it to overwhelm our little bits. But I am trying now.”

Next: Writer Jane Goldman promises humor and gore in her Game of Thrones prequel project

Something tells us that we haven’t yet seen the last of Beric Dondarrion.

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