There are a lot of iconic scenes on Game of Thrones: Ned Stark getting his head chopped off, the Red Wedding, Cersei blowing up the Sept of Baelor…and then there’s’ the time that someone left a coffee cup on a table in Winterfell in the season 8 episode “The Last of the Starks,” which has more staying power than I thought it would. The coffee cup itself was removed very quickly, of course, but the internet — like the North — remembers:
Thanks everyone who was supported me. It’s been a tough few years, trying to get my big break. Being an actor and a coffee cup is hard, y’all #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/oHOy8PkVZ2
— Game of Thrones Starbucks Cup (@GameStarbucks) May 6, 2019
The cast and crew members have debated back and forth for literally years over who’s coffee cup it was. The question remains unsettled and apparently still weighs on some of the stars’ minds, since Kit Harington (Jon Snow) brought it up during a recent interview with Uproxx. “I got blamed for leaving a coffee cup on a shot once, which wasn’t me,” he said, referring to the infamous cup. “Well, blamed me for that. And I swear it wasn’t!”
Sophie Turner, of course, played Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones. Maybe she protests too much? We’ll probably never know. Better to just argue about who left the cup until the heat death of the universe.
Why filming Eternals reminded Kit Harington of Game of Thrones
Looking forward, you can see Harington in Eternals, the new Marvel movie where he plays the superhero Dane Whitman, aka the Black Knight. As he told Hypebeast, he thought the experience of shooting a Marvel movie would be very different from filming Game of Thrones, but thanks to director Chloé Zhao, it was a more lot similar than he thought:
"The interesting thing about Thrones is that it was so location-based. We shot so much not on a sound stage. And I expected with a Marvel movie to be in a sound stage the whole time, and all of my stuff was on location. So that was a real gift and that was Chloe. You asked how it was working with Chloe. Chloe brought the way she shoots to the Marvel universe. And I think that’s what makes this movie what it is, is that it’s shot with a realism that I think is really fresh to this world."
It’s true that Marvel movies are often shot on sound stages — the movies are often set in far-off, fantastical realms or involve tons of special effects, so it helps to film in controlled environments. But Zhao is known for her naturalistic shooting style, and it definitely looks like she brought it to this big-budget superhero tentpole.
Eternals opens in theaters on November 5. Let’s hope no one left any beverages out on those location shoots.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels