That time the Game of Thrones showrunners pranked on Alfie Allen and it backfired
By Dan Selcke
Harlots star Alfie Allen appeared on The Late Late Show With James Corden the other night and talked about another show he used to be a part of: Game of Thrones, where he played a guy who was a jerk and then he got his testicles cut off and learned to be less of a jerk.
Now that the show is over, the Game of Thrones cast members can tell all the fun behind-the-scenes stories we never got to hear. Allen tells a good one that harkens back to the end of season 2, when Theon Greyjoy had occupied Winterfell with a cadre of Ironborn soldiers and was way in over his head:
So Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss gave Allen a script where he died at the end of season 2, rather than merely being knocked out by one of his lieutenants. “At the end of [Theon’s] speech, Bran sort of pops out from somewhere and stabs me in the chest and said, ‘This is my Winterfell, not yours.'” Can you imagine if Theon’s speech had ended like that?
I guess what Benioff and Weiss were hoping for was that Allan would freak out a bit and call them in a panic…but he didn’t. He just assumed that was the ending and got on with his life, to the point where people around the showrunners advised them to tell Allan that they’d given him a fake ending before things got confusing. So the prank kind of backfired. “Yeah,” Allen adds. “Ha ha!”
Not that this slowed down Benioff and Weiss. They were well known for pranking cast members throughout the run of the show. Allen mentions the time they gave Kit Harington a script where Jon Snow is disfigured. They also once told John Bradley (Sam) that he was going to have to wear this ridiculous costume:
Plus a bunch of other pranks. It must have made for a lively set.
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You can next see Allen on the big screen in Jojo Rabbit and How to Build a Girl.
Next. The editor of WiC gets an bottle cap shot off his head at Con of Thrones. dark
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