George RR Martin is currently ‘busy’ writing the final two novels in his Song of Ice and Fire series – as he has been for the last decade. He’s also anticipating the release of House of the Dragon – the Game of Thrones prequel series coming to HBO on August 21, 2022.
Speaking to the official Game of Thrones podcast, Martin mused on how he feels to see his characters come to life on the screen; “It is exciting if it’s being done right. There’s always dangers, I mean, [the books] are – I’ve made jokes they’re my children, but in a sense they are.”
“When you have a child, and you work with them for years, and then you give it to somebody else for adoption, or you send it away to boarding school or whatever, you hope that they come out well, that they’re not gonna be changed or abused, or something, too much.” Martin had to fully let go of the characters in the last few seasons, as the series moved past the plot of the books and had to make up their own ending.
Martin reflected on visiting the Game of Thrones set during the shooting of the pilot; “I remember with Game of Thrones when I first visited, they were shooting in Belfast, on an island, and I came to visit the set and they were still working on the first episode, the pilot. David Benioff showed me a clip of the scene with Arya (Maisie Williams) and her father Ned (Sean Bean) on the stairs, where she was standing on one foot trying to balance. And it was great. I mean, I’d seen rehearsals with these actors, but I hadn’t seen them in character, hadn’t seen them do it. It was my scene, come alive, these were my characters, and nothing felt better than to see that happen.”
“But of course, there’s always the flip side of that, where suddenly you’re seeing a scene and saying, man, what the hell have they done here? That’s not how it’s supposed to go, my character would never do that, my character would never say that. That can be frustrating, so like anything else in life, it’s complicated.”
While we wait to see how House of the Dragon pans out, check out our guide to the best fantasy movies.