George R.R. Martin turned down a cameo in Game of Thrones season 8
By Dan Selcke
The final season of Game of Thrones is around the corner, and while we’re still not sure exactly who we’ll see, we now know one person we won’t be seeing: A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Martin revealed that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss invited him to film a cameo for the final season, but while he was “tempted,” it just wasn’t in the cards. “I didn’t think just for the sake of a cameo I could take the time to return to Belfast.”
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This is pretty consistent with Martin’s posture over the last several years; he’s pledged to focus on completing The Winds of Winter, which means for foregoing things he might do otherwise, including convention appearances and cameos in world-famous TV shows. It would have been fun to see Martin pop up somewhere before the end, but we respect his stance.
And if HBO ever gets around to releasing the original, unaired Game of Thrones pilot, maybe we’ll see him anyway. As Martin points out, he made a cameo as a merchant at Daenerys’ wedding to Khal Drogo. “But that was when she was played by Tamzin Merchant so all that footage got thrown out when we recast with Emilia Clarke.”
AT the least, we’ll always have this photo:
Treasures of Northern Ireland: As we’ve noted in our recent Game of Thrones news roundup, Linda and I were away to Northern Ireland this past weekend on a trip sponsored by Tourism NI to see the Winterfell Festival at the beautiful Castle Ward estate… https://t.co/e8IApADoNx pic.twitter.com/QgVk7J1xbk
— Elio & Linda (@westerosorg) September 19, 2018
The eighth, final, and George R.R. Martin-less season of Game of Thrones kicks off on April 14, on HBO.
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