After his seemingly trivial introduction back in season 2 of Game Of Thrones, Liam Cunningham’s Ser Davos Seaworth has undeniably grown into one of the most popular characters in the entire show.
Now he is the trusted right-hand man to Kit Harrington’s Jon Snow, who is The King Of The North that is intent on stopping the Night King from destroying all of Westeros, and someone who has also just unknowingly committed the most famous act of incest in television history.
All of which means that season 8 of “Game Of Thrones” is set up rather nicely. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when Liam Cunningham previously revealed that he had grown rather impatient with the fact he hadn’t been able to get his hands on the scripts for the final batch of episodes.
Earlier this week I had the chance to sit down and talk to Cunningham about the release of “24 Hours To Live,” which sees him play the villain to Ethan Hawke’s hero in the high-octane action film. But the conversation soon turned to “Game Of Thrones,” and as an Englishman to an Irishman, I asked whether he was actually “peeved” at how long it took for him to get the scripts for season 8 from HBO.
“I wasn’t getting peeved,” Cunningham insisted before letting out a belting laugh. “I was getting excited and nervous. I wanted to see what was going on. One of the main reasons was that as an actor my ambition for this was to get to the last season, and I’ve been waiting on the scripts to see if I can get to the last episodes.”
Either way, Cunningham has now had the scripts in his possession for quite some time. “I have everything. I’ve read everything. I’ve seen everything, and we are well into shooting the last season now. It is a goer!”
Cunningham is rather happy with them, too, as when I asked how he first responded to reading the final episodes he responded, “They are extraordinary,” before then explaining why it took so long for them to get into his possession.
“What happened was I didn’t get a chance to read them. I was in New York doing publicity for Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams, and I was having a bit of trouble getting them because of security on the scripts. Myself and Kit Harington didn’t get to read them until we went to the read through when everyone was there.”
“So it was all new to us, and it is just, ‘Oohs,’ and, ‘Ahhs’. It is as it was in the past, it is just beautiful storytelling. Huge surprises. Wonderful stuff. I can safely say it will be a fantastic, fantastic finish to this incredible story.”
But one of the positives of this delay was that both Cunningham and Harington got to experience the story for the first time at the table read for the final season, as all of the cast were together to perform the script in person while seated.
“It was wonderful. It is the only time that you get us all in a room together in the one place. Usually the only time we meet everyone is when we are on a red carpet at a premiere. So it was just nice to see all of the main characters, actors, producers, heads of departments.”
While it was great that everyone was together for the read through, Cunningham admitted that the cast and crew soon became emotional as they realized this was the final time they would go through this ritual.
“It had a bittersweet aspect to it because it was the last time we are going to do it. It was incredibly special and moving. It was nice but slightly sad.”
Cunningham and the rest of the “Game Of Thrones” team are well aware that it is the perfect time to bring the show to an end, though, as he insisted that carrying it on any longer would be doing “the story a disservice.”
“The reason it is as big as it is and was is it is recognized by the audience that it is extraordinary storytelling and unique. At the end of this, we would be doing the story a disserve if we ran it out beyond its natural finish. It has always had a beginning, middle, and an end, and the guys said, ‘Look this story is going to take 70 hours of storytelling to get to the end of it.’ The meant from the get go it had a beginning, middle, and end. It still feels it is naturally coming to its end with the story that is there.”
We’re still not too sure when the beginning of the end of “Game Of Thrones” will air. In fact, the latest speculation is that it could even be delayed until 2019 so that HBO can make sure the finale is “cinematic.”
In the meantime, stay glued to Metro for further revelations from my discussion with Liam Cunningham regarding the final season of “Game Of Thrones,” which will be posted over the next few days.
