Ned Stark kept chocolates in his pockets, and other behind-the-scenes tidbits

Picture the scene: Robert Baratheon arrives at Winterfell. The Starks line up to greet him, falling to their knees before their king. Robert, resplendent in his royal finery, walks up and down the line, stopping to speak to his old friend, Ned Stark. Then a bunch of chocolates and sweets fall out of Ned’s breast pocket.

According to Game of Thrones star Mark Addy, who played Robert, that’s exactly what happened when he first filmed this scene opposite Sean Bean (Ned). To be specific, Kit Kats fell out of Bean’s pocket…a pocket he had specially sewn into his costume so he store sweets and smokes and stuff. How different that scene would have been if that moment had made the cut…

That’s just one of the many things Joe learned at the Winterfell Festival, a Game of Thrones celebration that went down a couple weekends back at Castle Ward in Northern Ireland, which stood in for Winterfell on the show. Joe dropped plenty of juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits, including:

• “After doing their scenes, Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy) and Richard Madden (Robb Stark) used to have sword fights on the set because they were so excited to actually get to play with weapons!”
• “The window that Jaime Lannister throws Bran out of in the very first episode was actually added via CGI. The tower itself is real – and was actually used for filming – but the window was too narrow and it had to be digitally inserted.”
• Addy recalled Robert’s original character description. “Robert Baratheon, once a fearsome warrior. He has now grown fat, drunk, and lazy!” Sounds about right. Also, the producers toyed with the idea of actually training a wild boar to kill King Robert onscreen, but obviously that didn’t happen.

And what’s Addy’s favorite Robert line? “Start the damn joust before I piss meself!” What else?

Addy wasn’t the only celebrity guest at the festival. Boyd Rankin, who worked as an armourer on the show for the first four seasons, said that Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) took home one of the replicas of Needle, Arya’s sword, when she finished filming.

That’s interesting, because when Williams was on a radio show about a month back, she was asked whether she took anything from the set as a memento, At that time, Williams said she took home one of Arya’s jackets, and didn’t mention Needle. But honestly, I’d be disappointed if she hadn’t gotten to keep Arya’s sword.

Also at the festival was Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan Selmy), who’s character was killed off in season 5, in Meereen. While McElhinney remembers Barristan’s death scene as fun to film, he has mixed feelings about exiting the show so early, particularly when Barristan is still alive in the books. Last we left him, he was actually in charge of the city.

"The fact of being out of it is not a problem. The problem to me is because I read the books, I had expectations of not being out of it at that point. That was my disappointment. If I had got to the end of the season and something had happened, I wouldn’t have had a problem with that. The problem was that season was only getting up and running and I was already dead.I think the character had so much more to offer and I think with regards to George’s take on the character, I think that there’s a bigger story to be developed. It’s the fact that I knew there was something I was missing out on because they chose to terminate him at that point, that’s what disappointed me."

Barristan, we hardly knew ye.

McElhinney sounds like he’s thought about the show fairly deeply, and thinks Bran Stark will be integral to the end. “One option is that the whole place will be destroyed by dragons – the nuclear option – but I think it’s not going to be as obvious as Jon/Daenerys on the throne,” he speculated. “The logic says that the whole show really did start with Bran. He’ll be significant because he has those incredible powers. I’d say, watch what happens to Bran.”

As a former cast member, McElhinney could probably find out the ending if he wanted to, but seems like he’s staying in the dark so he can enjoy it. He’s still in contact with someone on the set, though, as he assured attendees that what’s coming in season 8 will “top” the thrilling Battle of the Bastards from season 6. Bring it on.

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