What was it like filming the biggest battle scene in Game of Thrones history?
Game of Thrones season 8 contains a massive night battle between the army of the dead and the allied forces of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targareyn, and filming it was a grueling trial of endurance for all involved. Entertainment Weekly’s James Hibberd, who’s long been the publication’s Westeros war correspondent, spent time on set during the shoot and talked about it with @CheddarNews:
Apparently, the shoot was so tough that it gave the cast members pause. “Originally, the cast didn’t even really want to go there,” Hibberd says. “You know [the actors] don’t want to sound like they’re complaining. They don’t want to be like ‘[W]e’re on the biggest show in the world and its miserable.’ But, It really was miserable:”
“You know they (the actors) don’t want to sound like they’re complaining,” Hibbard says. “They don’t want to be like ‘[W]e’re on the biggest show in the world and its miserable.’ But, it really was miserable.”
"It was really tough. It was three months, nearly, of night shoots. And when you’re in Belfast in March that means its in the low 30s, its raining, its muddy, there’s horse poop mixed in with all the mud. You have fake snow which is basically a form of paper and you end up breathing it so you end up with paper coating your lungs. and you’re not awake during the daytime at all, so you become a bit of a zombie yourself."
To put things in context, Hibberd compared the Game of Thrones battle shoot to other sets he’s been on. “I think the biggest thing was there was more cast there,” he said. “I was on set for the Battle of the Bastards and that’s mainly focused on Kit Harington’s Jon Snow; here you have twenty-something faces you would recognize. so its a lot more complex because you are trying to tell stories that are focused on various characters and there’s like six different storylines within this battle.” That fits with what we’ve heard about the Battle of Winterfell featuring “a mixture of genres.” With “Hardhome” and “Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik at the helm, we’re expecting something very special.
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Game of Thrones season 8 starts April 14, with the big spectacular battle likely coming in the third episode, on April 28.
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