Iain Glen reveals what’s next for Jorah Mormont

I know that headline is a little confusing. After all, Jorah Mormont died in the most recent episode of Game of Thrones. It’ll make sense in just a sec, although I should warn you that there are minor, rather obvious SPOILERS ahead.

Interviews with Glen have been popping up all over the internet in the wake of “The Long Night,” as the actor discusses what it was like to film the grueling Battle of Winterfell and how he feels about ending his eight-season run on the show. “It was a real test,” he told Entertainment Weekly soon after shooting his final scene. “Most of this crew…were on 11 weeks and it completely f—s your body clock. You have no life outside it. At least on day shoots you’ll go have a meal in the evening and then you do a bit of something. On night shoots those down hours are removed. You get to sleep at 7 in the morning and wake in midday and you can’t really do anything. It was the most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones; the least enjoyable of all of it.”

That’s pretty consistent with things we’ve heard about this shoot being grueling. But hopefully something good came out of it. “You have an absolute f—ed bunch of actors. But on screen it’s horrible and dirty and dark and cold; it’s really miserable. Without getting too method about it, it bleeds onto the screen.”

Jorah’s big final fight scene, where he defended his queen from marauding wights, hit several snags along the way, including high winds and an alarming personal issue. “My wife was in dress rehearsal for a play that night, and I rang her to say, ‘break a leg’ and there was no reply so I left a message,” Glen revealed to the Making Game of Thrones blog. “And then I was called to set to rehearse the scene, and when I went back, I got a message from her saying she was in the hospital —  she had suffered a brain hemorrhage. The nature of it, after it was all said and done, means it’s never going to happen again, and she’s fully recovered, but I was completely on the floor at the time, a total mess.”

"And of course there was a connection with Emilia [Clarke, who plays Daenerys], who I know has spoken publicly about her medical issues, and she was brilliant, and she, [director Miguel Sapochnik] and [executive producer] Bernie Caulfield told me to go, get on a flight. We came back two weeks later, and they had all the elements in place, and conditions were good, and it felt like the right time to do it. It was my last scene of the episode, and it was a pretty amazing night. It felt like the right ending for Jorah."

Man, no wonder Jorah looked so shattered.

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But let’s get back to that headline. How can Glen have revealed what comes next for Jorah when he’s dead? Well, here he is talking about when he read the scripts for the final six episodes for the first time:

"You go through a bundle of emotions. Your best indication of what happens is they always list the cast on the first page of each script. I think all six came together at once. First script, yeah, I’m in that one. Second, yeah, I’m in that one. Third, I’m in that one. Fourth, yeah I’m that one — just being a corpse, but I didn’t know that yet. Then fifth, no, I’m not there. Sixth one: Oh no! So I knew I definitely died."

So there you have it; we will Jorah once more, as a corpse. That makes sense given the trailer for next week’s episode, which looks to have a scene where the dead are honored.

More importantly, Glen gave his impression of those scripts:

"Then I read the scripts and I just think they’re so good. I enjoy reading them. I’m as intrigued as anyone to find out what unfolds, whether it’s The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. You know you can’t please everyone all the time but I just think they did it incredibly right, the way they resolve all the various storylines. When I read the nature of his demise it felt right. It was the right conclusion…It’s a heroic and satisfying demise. I think [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] were sweetly nervous about everyone’s reaction and their instinct is you’ll be upset that you’re out. So the first thing I did is I went and emailed them and told them how much I loved the scripts. And they said, “Aw, you’re a gent.” And I said, “No, I’m really grateful for this conclusion.”"

According to Glen, that’s the big writing challenge of the final season: giving various characters proper sendoffs that meet audience expectations. I’d say Jorah’s was about perfect. Of all the deaths in “The Long Night,” his affected me the most, although I wasn’t expecting it to. Perhaps fear of those emotions is why Glen still hasn’t watched the episode. “I just watched episode two, and I’m just reminded what a wonderful job David and Dan do,” he told Variety. “Episode one and two reminded the audience of what a long journey you have been on with these people, how much you have invested with these people. They’ve been at each other’s throats, but now they have come together. This mad group of characters who are full of their own various faults, to fight for life against death. I just feel so utterly invested in it that I’m slightly afraid of actually watching the third episode.”

"I think it’s brave storytelling to have such a monumental center piece to the season, whatever unfolds afterwards will be of a different tenor. Watching that second episode really reminded me of saying to my wife, ‘Do you remember our first kiss under the National Theater in the car park?’ That’s what I feel when I watch the show, you’re reminded all the time of that’s when they met, oh they used to hate each other, that person’s making love for the first time, and I know that because I saw them as a kid. You’re really invested and then you threaten them, there’s a lot that needs to be resolved and a lot that needs to unfold, but it was a bold piece of dramaturgy to put a monumental, cataclysmic, very, very hard to top episode bang in the middle."

And now that it’s over, we genuinely have almost no idea what’s coming next! HBO really did keep a lid on this stuff this year. I, for one, am wondering what Daenerys will do without her stalwart protecter and advisor around to guide her. What advice would Jorah give Dany is he was still around? “Try and find compromise with those people who can help your cause, and try and find forgiveness where you need it.” He started down that path when he advised Dany to forgive Tyrion and reach out to Sansa. Hopefully she’ll continue down that path.

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Some other bon mots from Glen:

• Is there anything he wishes Jorah got to do but didn’t? “Other than the painfully obvious one of making love to Daenerys, way back when, in all honesty, no. It would feel churlish and ungrateful even if I could conjure up something. I’ve always felt very looked after. The whole greyscale journey was not in the original books, and that was something they gifted the character. I could say I wish Jorah expressed himself more, but that’s just not who he was. [The showrunners] always said, slightly joshing, ‘You’re great in silence. We always like having you in a scene when you’re not speaking.’ But they were being sweet. But no, there’s nothing.”
• What was his favorite scene? “If I had to pick, I’d say two: The whole gladiatorial sequence — what was required physically during that sequence for Daenerys’ benefit, trying to win her back. It was a very hard week and I loved doing that. So for the action side of things that sequence encapsulated it. In terms of emotional demands, and feeling satiated, it was probably being rejected by Daenerys when she found out there was a duality to my approach to her. When I came in front of her and she said she told me she never wanted to see me again.”
• What was it like working with Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont) ever so briefly? “It was a lovely scene to do, she’s such a fine wee actress. One of the delicious things about Thrones, is that these characters who may be connected by lineage or family have been kept lands apart — and it takes eight seasons for people to come together. In the show I never interacted my father [Jeor Mormont] so it was lovely to interact with someone from the same house. She’s a very fiery character. It was funny, and there’s an edge of humor to it; you realize she’s not going to be moved or affected by whatever Jorah says to her, she’s going to be pursuing her path, which is a quality Jorah has too, but he can’t recognize in himself.”

And finally, he talked about how he felt after his final scene had wrapped. “It was a very weird and lonely sensation. Once I was done, I just wanted to get out. I just wanted to hold it all in my head: what had been basically 10 years of my life. A massive slice of my working life, and in many ways the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

You can read more of Glen’s comments at Entertainment Weekly, Variety, and at the Making Game of Thrones blog. Goodbye, Ser Jorah. You’ll be missed.

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