Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on the Game of Thrones series finale: “All the pieces fit”

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has scored his first Emmy nomination and he has the press to prove it. He recently discussed the much-anticipated Game of Thrones series finale with The Wrap. “I read it, and I wrote [creators] Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] and said I don’t think they could have done a better job.”

"I mean, when I read it — I’ve spent so many years working on this and been guessing and trying to figure out how this will end — and when I read it, some of the parts of it I’d get, and other parts of it were just completely shocking and surprising. And it wasn’t, there were none of those horrible — you know shows where it’s a murder mystery and at the very last minute you find out it doesn’t make sense? But here all the pieces fit into this massive jigsaw puzzle."

Can anyone think of long stories that ended in nonsensical ways? Lost? Battlestar Galactica? The floor is open.

Anyway, we have plenty of ideas about how Game of Thrones will end, but we’re all hoping we won’t see parts of it coming. If the finale managed to surprise one of its stars, that’s a good sign.

Naturally, Coster-Waldau also weighed in on Jaime’s complicated relationship with his twin sister Cersei, which he described as the cornerstone of Jaime’s life. “His whole life has been about, ‘How can I accommodate my sister? How can I navigate this world so I can be close to her, so I can protect her?’…I mean, he’s tried his best, and he thought, I think, in season 7 he finally had her complete trust and the fact that she revealed she’d made quite different plans when Theon Greyjoy, that Qyburn is now her closest ally. I think it shocked him.”

We’re guessing Coster-Waldau meant Euron Greyjoy, not Theon, but it would be quite the plot twist if Cersei had been conspiring with Theon this whole time, right?

Anyway, back to Jaime’s messy breakup with his twin sister:

"They have a future, potentially another shot at having a child, and she’s willing to risk everything for something to him that just doesn’t make sense. And on top of that, they just gave their word to the world, to everyone. And she just sees this crazy thing tried to kill her … And I think he sees her for a second the way the rest of the world sees her. And it shocked him and also the fact for a second she seemed as if she was ready to have the Mountain kill him — I think it broke his heart."

I think we found the exact moment his heart shattered:

Poor Jaime…we think. Is it appropriate to feel sorry for a guy who finally ended the incestuous relationship for which he pushed a child out a window? It’s complicated.

On a brighter note, it sounds like the cast had a great time behind the scenes of season 8. “It’s been wonderful to do this last season. Almost all of it was shot in Belfast, so that means even though you haven’t been in the same scenes with them [the entire cast], you’ve seen a lot more people.”

Game of Thrones season 8 will air sometime in the first half of 2019.

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