“How far will you go to protect something you love?” It sounds like a dramatic line from a book, film, or show. And it could very well be! But here, we’re talking about the extreme lengths to which HBO went in order to protect the secrets of the final season of Game of Thrones during its filming. There was a long gap of almost two years between the airing of the seventh and the eighth season. So, it was quite obvious that people did as much as they could to fish out the details about the finale of perhaps the most-talked-about TV series ever. Things did leak but HBO took every measure possible to preserve the secrecy. Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark) revealed the security steps taken during the filming of a very important scene from the final episode of GoT. Read on to find out more. Spoilers ahead.

This scene featured the Stark siblings together for one last time on the show. The scene on the dock where Arya, Sansa, and Bran bid their farewells to Jon before he left for the Wall. Bran had already become the King of the Six Kingdoms; Sansa the Queen of the North; Arya had killed the Night King and was heading West; and Jon would spend the rest of his days beyond the Wall after having killed Daenerys. Thus, too many secrets went into the making of that moment on the dock. So, for that highly-charged scene filmed in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Isaac told news.com.au that the filming location seemed like a “CIA site”.

“It was ridiculous, the security and secrecy,” he said. We have heard similar things about the security measures from other actors as well. “When we shot in Dubrovnik for that scene where we’re saying goodbye to Jon Snow, I’ve never experienced anything like that; it was like being a secret agent. We came into the country on a chartered flight so nobody would see us, we stayed in this hotel and they booked out the entire hotel just for us. We weren’t allowed to go out, we couldn’t walk outside,” he described.

But that’s not all, the ‘dock-scene day’ amped the security even more. “On that day, HBO rented out every single apartment and every single hotel room that could possibly overlook where we were shooting. We had coast guards patrolling just outside in the water to check no boats were coming by”. Take a breath, it goes on further. “When we were coming in and out of cars we had to be covered in coats; and when we flew back, we were the last people on the flight and we had to sneak in.” It resembles a top-secret mission indeed.

This was all because Game of Thrones enjoyed huge popularity among the masses for almost a decade. “It was really amazing that people loved this story so much and were so desperate to get any nugget of information. You had a pinch-yourself-moment every day,” Hempstead Wright said.

As to whether he foresaw his rise to the throne, the 21-year-old actor said, “I didn’t see it coming at all. A lot of the time it was fans and friends talking and saying ‘I feel like it’s got to be Bran’ and I said ‘You are so wrong, it’ll be someone else.’ Even when I read the script I thought, ‘Is this really true?’ I wasn’t entirely sure, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t Bran. I thought it was going to be an obvious one, maybe Sansa. (But) no complaints there. It couldn’t have gone any better for me. It went badly for other people.”

It’s crazy how time flies on the wings of a raven. Game of Thrones ended more than a year ago. And it feels like just yesterday when we were speculating what course would the final season take. But we won’t go into all of that; we’ve done that so many times and there’s no point drawing fresh blood from an old/nearly healed wound. We’re happy that Brandon Stark sat on the throne; because who better to lead the realm than someone who knows all the mistakes of the history; plus, can watch over his kingdoms in real-time and has got no great desire to rule. All hail Bran the Broken!

What are your thoughts? Tell us in the comments section below.

Almost every actor from the cast of Game of Thrones has commented on what they felt about the ending of the show. Most of them have defended the final season and the end it brought forth; while few have chosen a mild stance of criticism. Kerry Ingram, who played perhaps the most loved child character (Shireen Baratheon) on the show, has become yet another cast member to come out in full support of the ending. In a chat with Bang Showbiz, Kerry explained her own take on the HBO series’ infamous culmination.

“I think the ending was good, they took into account a lot of the first season. The show started with the Starks and ended with the Starks,” she said. There’s no denying the fact that House Stark remained a pivot around which the story in Westeros revolved through the eight seasons of GoT. The symbolic value of their words (“Winter is coming”), the ancestry of their lineage, and the sheer Northern resolve to survive and stick together forged the base on which the story unfolded. So, yeah, it was inevitable that the story began and finished with the Starks. But does it describe the way everything happened through the course of that journey? Probably not!

Kerry further continued, “Also, I think that the main reason the ending was so controversial is because the show had been running for so long that people had created their own endings. People write their own fan fiction; they write their own endings and it’s beautiful to see but then people get ideas in their head and the ending will never match up to their ideas. But you can’t please everyone and I personally think it was really, really good.”

Now, this is an argument that many actors have made a case for; that you can’t please everyone. While that’s true, it’s also highly subjective. The last season went under so much scrutiny because people were invested too much and yes, they expected a lot. But those expectations mostly arose from George R.R. Martin’s books and David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ show. Game of Thrones turned into a richly complex story over its long run; and it seemed like it became difficult to tame the beast. But since the journey was so well built at least up until the sixth season, it was very natural to expect an equally satisfying end. However, despite all criticism and flak, Game of Thrones still remains one of the best shows for a large majority of people.

Kerry’s sweet yet confident portrayal of Shireen Baratheon won her a lot of praise. Shireen’s infectious camaraderie with Ser Davos (Liam Cunningham) and her innocent persona became immortal in the hearts and minds of the fans after her brutal death; which was one of the most shocking moments in Game of Thrones history. Before GoT, Ingram starred in Matilda the Musical from November 2010 to April 2012; for which she received an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Most recently, she appeared in the Netflix’s British Drama series Free Rein for three seasons.

The 21-year old English actress has been writing her own series during the coronavirus lockdown. “It was originally a film but I realized I couldn’t fit everything I wanted into a film. So, it’s now a series and I’ve had quite a few people interested in it; so hopefully, once this (COVID lockdown) is all over, I’ll have a script to pitch,” she said. Well, we wish her all the luck with this exciting new prospect!

So, what do you guys think about Kerry’s view of the ending? Tell us in the comments.

Life throws many challenges at us. Sometimes they can be too much to bear at one time but it is those challenges that make us who we become later in life. Natalie Dormer a.k.a. Margaery Tyrell of Game of Thrones too has had a life full of challenges and she recently talked about in an interview. Read on to find out more!

Buoyed by her recently released Penny Dreadful: City of Angels where she plays a demon, Dormer recently spoke to The Mirror. She reflected on her journey all the way from her school life where she was bullied to becoming a confident actress. She also spoke about why she craves for strong roles and their impact on her.

“I’m fascinated by powerful women who transform their strength into sensuality. I’m very shy in real life and I think there’s a side of me that hopes that by taking on these roles, I can become a great seductress. But I also want to be part of stories that show how women can lead interesting, engaging lives apart from their romantic relationships.”

She made it a point to not back down ever since she was bullied in the school. She said:

“I suffered a lot of bullying in school and, ever since, I’ve made it a point not to back down and to rise up to every situation and become a stronger person. That’s a key aspect of my personality and how I try to live. I needed to work on my confidence level in my 20s until I became more forceful.”

She also made a parallel between the world of 1930’s Los Angeles shown in her latest series to the current world.

“There’s been an incredible political polarization that has been going on in recent years – the demonization of the other, the resurgence of nationalism, pointing the finger at others, and this nasty brand of identity politics. There are very uncomfortable parallels between the state of things today and the kind of things happening in the mid-to-late 1930s and the lead-up to the Second World War.”

She also revealed that she almost made it to the Cambridge university but enrolled herself into a drama school instead. She was also pretty close to her grandfather who in some ways defined her future by supporting her creative juices.

From being bullied to being part of an epic saga like Game of Thrones and Hunger Games, Dormer has truly come a long way. We truly admire her for that.

How about you? Talk to us in the comments section below!