Ed Sheeran enjoyed his Game of Thrones cameo, but the reaction “muddied my joy”
By Dan Selcke
Way back in 2017, which feels like an eternity ago, musician Ed Sheeran appeared on the season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones, playing a random Lannister soldier Arya runs into on her way to King’s Landing. He even sang a snatch of a song adapted from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
“We knew that Maisie was a big fan of Ed Sheeran, and for years we’ve been trying to get him on the show so we can surprise Maisie,” showrunner David Benioff said at the time. “This year we finally did it.” All in all, it was a nice little scene that humanized the Lannister military and got us back in touch with Arya’s humanity after she spent seasons training to become a killing machine.
But despite how innocuous the sequence was, the cameo produced a pretty weird backlash, to the point where director Jeremy Podeswa defended the daring decision to have a famous person appear in costume for 30 seconds.
Ed Sheeran feels like he “pissed off a lot of people” with Game of Thrones appearance
Sheeran felt the backlash too — his Twitter account disappeared and reappeared shortly after it started. Appearing on an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast the other day, he described his Game of Thrones experience as bittersweet. “It was great,” he said. However, “I feel like people’s reaction to it sort of muddied my joy to it.”
"I feel like I pissed off a lot of people by being in that, but anytime I meet someone that is like, ‘oh you cameoed on that show,’ I’m like, ‘What would you say?’ Everyone would say yes. I was a fan of the show; they asked me to be in it. I didn’t expect there to be that much backlash but I am definitely more careful when I am offered cameos now."
It was always a really dumb thing to get mad at the show about. And as folk soon discovered, there would be plenty more to criticize Game of Thrones for in the coming years.
Next. Hannah Waddingham joins Hocus Pocus 2, and more Game of Thrones alum news. dark
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h/t The A.V. Club