Game of Thrones: How the Case Supported One Another in the Dragonpit

"They were all there all the time."

By Matt Fowler

Warning: Spoilers for the Game of Thrones: Season 7 finale, "The Dragon and the Wolf."

Game of Thrones' Season 7 finale was the longest episode of the show to date, mostly because of an extended sequence that brought a dozen major characters to King's Landing for an attempt at truce in the city's old Dragonpit.

Powerful players like Daenerys (who entered on Drogon), Jon Snow, Cersei, Jaime, The Hound, Brienne, Euron, and many more gathered for a reunion of friends, enemies, and frenemies in shoot that director Jeremy Podeswa described to us as "very very challenging."

When we spoke to Podeswa about Tyrion's suspicious final look and whether or not Tormund and Beric survived the collapse of the Wall, we also inquired about the memorable meeting of the minds in the Dragonpit and what it was like to have so many major characters in the scene, basically, as background, with no dialogue.

"It was something where we really spoke a lot about it before we started shooting," Podeswa shared, "because a lot of the time, yeah, we had main actors on a show being extras in a way. There’s something going on between two or three characters but all the other characters still have to be there and react to it. They’re not like extras, they still have to react to what’s going on, but it’s not like they have a ton of dialogue."

"But what’s great about this company," he said, "is that they’re all there for each other and they all know that for this scene to work it didn’t matter who was on camera or who was speaking, they were all there 100%. So there was never a situation where the cameras were just on Jon and Dany or someone else and the other actors were off somewhere having coffee. That never happened."

"They were all there all the time for everybody," Podeswa explained. "It created this family dynamic and it helped support everybody. And they all knew that it wouldn’t be too long before we got around to them. In the end, everyone had a great time doing it."

For more on Game of Thrones, watch IGN's full breakdown of the episode in this week's Dragons on the Wall. Plus, the showrunners break down why the Wall had to come down and what they were looking forward to in Littlefinger's death scene.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at http://ift.tt/2aJ67FB.

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