The highly anticipated Season 4 of HBO’s smash “Game of Thrones” returns on April 6.
The Source Magazine was on the red carpet for the New York premiere of “GOT” Season 4 at Avery Fisher Hall. Watch our exclusive video interviews with the guys of “Game of Thrones” Mark Stanley, Finn Jones, Dean Charles Chapman, John Bradley, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Michael McElhatton, Pedro Pascal, Conleth Hill and Alfie Allen below:
Mark Stanley plays Grenn on the show.
What can fans expect this season?
It’s got bigger and bigger. You can expect some big things this year. It’s great seeing the guys again, you know, it’s like returning to the family each year but I think episode nine this year, it’s got to compete with last year’s Red Wedding and the year before was Battle of Blackwater. I think you are going to be coming up North to see the defense of the Wall this year and there’s going to be some good surprises there.
Q: Do you read the books or just work with the script?
No, I read it as each one comes out so I don’t want to get too far ahead cause you never know when you are going to get your head hacked off in this show. So I’m up to Feast for Crows. Parts of it are being covered this year but I think that’s probably next season.
Q: And tell me about filming these large battle scenes, what’s the process like?
It’s a long, painstaking process. You know, you’ve got to learn the fight choreography and then you’re turning up to do night shoots night after night after night. It’s an exhausting process, but with the guys there, you know, like I say we are like a tight knit family now so everybody helps each other along. But the stunts guys are fantastic, they are always teach you what to do.
Finn Jones plays Loras Tyrell on the show.
What is Loras up to this season?
There’s a lot of sass going on. There’s a lot of who can out-sass each other but we are both people that I think are torn by what our family tells us to do. So I think we kind of have that in common, you know?
Q: What has it been like immersing yourself in the world of “Game of Thrones”?
It’s amazing, it’s incredible. The best thing about immersing yourself in the “Game of Thrones” world is it’s so easy because you’ve got great costume designers, great scriptwriters, great set dressers and as an actor it’s a total dream just to be able to step into that world and just be like, “Hey, here I am in Westeros.” Your imagination has to do such little work because everyone else’s work is just so supportive. So it’s wonderful. Cool.
Q: You character is a good guy.
Yeah, I try to be.
Q: You know what happens to the good guys.
I know, I’m one of the last standing good guys. Let’s just pray for Loras that he can continue to live in this world.
Q: What’s the most surprising thing about this role so far?
I’ve had had to have sex with a ton of guys … in front of people that’s a bit odd.
Dean Charles Chapman plays Tommen Baratheon.
Q: What do you think is Joffrey’s biggest fault?
That he’s crazy. Joffrey is just mad isn’t he, he’s just a psychopath.
Q: So in a battle between him and Daenerys who are you rooting for?
I should say the Lannisters but Daenerys.
Q: What is your favorite episode this season?
Probably two.
Q: Is Season 4 crazier than the last season?
This season just ups it in so many ways, this is the best season.
Q: What was the most shocking scene?
The most shocking scene I saw was the Red Wedding, obviously. That was just, like, really bad. Really bad.
Q: What is your character up to this season?
This season you are getting to know Tommen, you’re seeing him more than you did in the past seasons but he’s a nice kid.
Q: What has it been like in immersing yourself in the “Game of Thrones” world?
Oh, it’s an amazing thing to be a part of. “Game of Thrones” is just so… fun filming, it’s just a massive achievement.
John Bradley plays Samwell Tarly.
Q: Speak about your character’s relationship with Gilly?
Well there’s always going to be a lot of tension between them from now because their relationship has evened up so much. They’ve both separated and gone on their own little adventures and achieved things that are in similar areas to each other in terms of love and romance. So Sam’s self-esteem should really be on the up. But you know what Sam’s like, he finds self-esteem something very, very hard to come by. And he should be happy. He’s got John and Gilly and baby Sam all together in one place, but there’s something about him that he’s so unfamiliar with happiness that I think he feels uncomfortable around it. He just doesn’t slip into the happiness skin very, very easily and I think in that situation he’s going to find a way of upsetting the apple cart a little bit. Just because he’s most familiar with unease.
Q: What’s it like to immerse yourself in the world of “Game of Thrones”?
It’s just such glorious escapism really. I think that’s partially why it’s so successful, it’s the mix of escapism but a lot of themes that people can readily relate to. I think if you’ve got a problem in life it can be solved by both of those. It can be solved by both thinking about something else that has no relation to your life at all and escaping that mentally somehow and also seeing other people go through some of the same struggles that you’re going through. And I think that in the Venn diagram of those two things, “Game of Thrones” is very, very happily settled right in the middle and I think that’s key to its success really.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays Jojen Reed.
Q: What does your character do in Season 4?
My character is called Jojen Reed and he finds Bran and he’s on this kind of mission that he has to look after Bran and take care of him and then send him on this journey, this mission to fulfill… something. I think even in Jojen you get snippets of the future and he has these powers but I don’t think everything is very laid out for him and very clear in his own head. I don’t think he truly knows everything of the future anyway. He just knows and has this feeling that her has to drive this child, basically, to become everything that he is destined to become.
Michael McElhatton plays Roose Bolton.
Q: Tell us about your character?
In the books I am traveling. I am traveling to the Dreadfort and travelling to Winterfell so I’m only in a couple of the episodes. But they are great scenes, they are important scenes and they are setting up the shift in power that is happening as the result of the Red Wedding.
Q: How did people react to your role in the Red Wedding?
On the streets? I didn’t get any eggs thrown at me or anything like that, no, no. I had a woman the other day in my local chemist say, “I find the show very misogynistic and very violent. Can I have a photo with you please?”
Q: How did it feel when you knew that you were going to be that guy that puts a knife in someone’s back?
At the time when I got it I didn’t know, I wasn’t familiar with the books and stuff like that. But everybody told me and so I started to read and yeah I mean we knew that that was going to be a major, major moment, a huge moment and I think they, they played it out brilliantly.
Pedro Pascal plays Oberyn Martell.
Tell us about the storytelling.
I think that they kind of told a story in so many different ways, through special effects, through very intimate scenes between two people, through very, very sexually explicit material, some of it can be violent, some of it can be sensual, some of it is loving and so my experience particularly … it was a lot of fun.
Q: So if you could rewrite the script so your character could do absolutely anything what would it be?
He does absolutely anything. So there’s no rewriting there because he basically is a character that does what he wants when he wants to. So he’s completely uncompromising in terms of that so I really honestly couldn’t add anything to his capacity for doing.
Conleth Hill plays Lord Varys.
Q: What is it like to immerse yourself in this world?
Fantastic. Surreal and the fact that it is filmed an hour away from where I live … I’m in my garden in the afternoon.
Q: Alfie Allen is now Reek!
I have to keep reminding everyone to call me Reek on set. I’m like, “It’s not Theon, it’s Reek.” So yeah, it’s pretty great, I wouldn’t be able to tell you a process of how I sort of approached that but it’s amazing as an actor to be given the opportunity to do something like this.
Q: Do you and Lord Varys have a little more time together?
Well, yeah we’re definitely more friendly now, we completely bonded over it. But I don’t know really. I’m hoping it just gets magicked back on at some point. But who knows, who knows what might happen. But I doubt it, somehow. But we’ll see what happens. As an actor it was cool to be able to have Theon Greyjoy whose only sort of position of authority is when he gets in the bedroom, because every other decision in his life is made for him, to have that taken away from him, stripped down to nothing, was great. I’m interested to see where he goes from now on.
