John Bradley (Sam) is a little sad he won’t be in Game of Thrones prequel

Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons on HBO, becoming a fantasy phenomenon in the process. Naturally, HBO is readying a prequel: House of the Dragon, about a Targaryen civil war that tore Westeros apart hundreds of years before Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen were born.

Like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has a huge cast — Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, and so on — but since it’s a prequel, no one from Game of Thrones actually turns up (unless they pull some time travel magic we don’t know about), which feels a bit weird for at least one of them.

“It’s going to be very strange,” original Game of Thrones cast member John Bradley (Sam Tarly) told Screen Rant. “It’s a bit like when you move house, and you go back to your old house, and you see other people have moved in and what they’ve done with it and the way they’ve changed it.”

"It’s going to be a strange experience, but it’s going to be a happy experience. I’m so happy to see that universe expanding, and it’s in such great hands with [Game of Thrones director and House of the Dragon showrunner] Miguel Sapochnik, who did so many of our great episodes of the show. I think it’s going to be a bittersweet experience. But I really hope it does well because there’s so much potential for that universe to expand in all sorts of directions. Miguel’s the right man to do it. Great cast there, Matt Smith, and so many other fun people. I think it’s going to be great, but there’s going to be a tinge of sadness that none of us are involved, I think."

House of the Dragon premieres sometime this year. When it arrives, Bradley will be in the same boat as the rest of us.

John Bradley compares Moonfall to Game of Thrones

Meanwhile, you can catch Bradley as a conspiracy theorist who discovers the moon is going to attack the Earth in Moonfall, a new disaster film from Independence Day director Roland Emmerich.

“We had a lot of green screen and I’ve done green screen before, but it’s always been stuff on Game of Thrones like, ‘Oh you have to imagine thousands of men heading towards you,'” Bradley told Digital Spy. “You can kind of picture what thousands of men would look like in your mind’s eye, but you can’t imagine what the interior of the Moon looks like because nobody has got any reference for it. It was a big imaginative leap and when I saw it, it exceeded even my lofty expectations of it.”

Moonfall lands in theaters this Friday, February 4.

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