Ciarán Hinds didn’t watch Game of Thrones after Mance Rayder died
By Dan Selcke
Ciarán Hinds outlines why his Game of Thrones character Mance Rayder was a good leader.
Game of Thrones was famous for having a huge number of characters. You’d be forgiven for forgetting a few, like Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall. A former Night’s Watchmen, he spent a lifetime uniting the warring wildling clans and leading them south in an attempt to breach the Wall and get out of the reach of the White Walkers. In the end he was defeated and executed by Stannis Baratheon at Castle Black.
That was the season 5 premiere, and that’s about when actor Ciarán Hinds stopped tuning in. Hinds revealed as much in an interview with NME, although he said he’d be down to binge the series when he had some time. “I owe myself a treat once I stop working to watch it from beginning to end.”
Superfan or not, Hinds sounds like he liked Mance Rayder, praising the character’s “lack of bulls**ttery.”
"He didn’t bother with any of the extraneous nonsense that we usually see from people who lead. He said: “This is what the issue is, I believe in it, these people need help, and we are going to take action. And I will be as they are and I will live the life that they do.It’s not leading from the front. It’s leading from the centre, in a way, because he’s right in the middle of it. He knows that he has the capability to be the spokesperson, but he didn’t put himself higher than the rest of them. I think that’s probably why people followed him.”"
Mance was just one of many great supporting characters to come from the mind of George R.R. Martin. May the upcoming prequel series House of the Dragon be as generous.
You can see Hinds now in the dramedy series The Dry. Or why not sample his Oscar-nominated performance in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast?
Next. Sophie Turner: Sansa Stark will “always be a part of me”. dark
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