Game of Thrones Eyes Spain

Spanish fans, are you sitting down? Because according to James Hibberd at EW, the production is looking to film in Spain for season 5. While Hibberd’s coy about just what new region might be depicted there, the image heading the article might be taken as a hint… although as we’ve seen from the past production, it’s entirely possible that filming in Spain might be used to supplement footage shot elsewhere (just as the dragon scene in “The Laws of Gods and Men” was filmed in Iceland, as Byran Cogman revealed in our interview, despite all other Slaver’s Bay exteriors having been shot in Croatia).

Spain has a very long history as a popular filming location for its beautiful, semi-arid regions and the Moorish influence on its architecture. Andalusia—the name of the region deriving from the Arabic name, Al-Andalus—served as one of the primary filming locations for David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, as well as a significant part of Sergio Leone’s westerns with Clint Eastwood, such as A Fist Full of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and also Anthony Mann’s El Cid. Suffice it to say, it will provide a lot of possibilities for Dorne, a region Martin has explicitly connected with Moorish Spain.

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Mockingbird Episode Guide

Our episode guide for “Mockingbird” is now updated with the first of our content: the book-to-scene breakdown and our review analyzing various scenes, as well as a number of HBO’s post-episode videos (including an interesting one from GRRM discussing Littlefinger’s feelings towards Sansa). Besides that, HBO has placed the trailer for episode 8 on-line, which we’ve placed over in the episode guide for “The Mountain and the Viper”. Remember, that episode won’t be airing until two weeks from now, as the show takes a break for Memorial Day (replacing it in its time slot is the HBO original movie, The Normal Heart, starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts; heard some good things about this harrowing look at the early days of the AIDS crisis in New York City, so it’s worth checking out).

We hope to get our detailed recap of the episode posted tomorrow evening, but for those who want to discuss the episode, rate it, and more, the A Song of Ice and Fire forum is full of like-minded individuals, so give it a try!

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Reviewing the First of His Name

The episode’s done, and our episode guide for “First of His Name” has gone live with our initial analysis of the episode, as well as our book-to-screen breakdown and a number of HBO’s post-episode videos. Our own video—as well as our exhaustive recap—will have to wait until tomorrow this time around, as neither of us can stay up much longer out here!

But to tide you over, there’s always the forum, and HBO has also released the preview to the next episode, which you can find at the guide for “The Laws of Gods and Men”.

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Interview with Christie and Coster-Waldau

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to interview a number of actors in London. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has been our most frequently interviewed actor, I believe—he’s always been quite game to talk to us!—but they’ve always been just with him. This time around, Gwendoline Christie joined him, and I finally got to see at first hand what the show is like as the two actors spark off one another, sending zingers one another’s way with much laughter. And sometimes the zingers aren’t just directed at one another, as you’ll see below ...

Interview

Nikolaj, since we spoke last year we’ve seen that your character has become more human and likable. Do you feel that progression continues this season?

Nikolaj: I think that the key here is that—what’s great about is that a show like this has so much time to learn more about the characters. There’s no question that at the beginning you knew nothing about Jaime Lannister, you just saw his actions, but you didn’t know why he acted like he did. Now we’ve learned a lot more, and a lot of things has happened. When we meet him at the start of this season, it’s a few weeks since he’s returned and he’s now Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. The whole Lannister family is there, and Jaime deals with his father’s expectations, with Cersei—and that’s of course quite complicated—and his brother is also in a very tight spot and he needs Jaime to help him. He has Joffrey, his nephew/son, who’s being a bit of pain… and of course he has to deal with Brienne, who keeps reminding him of this promise he made. And of course he lost his hand, which is quite a bit of a problem.

It defined him in his own eyes, and in the eyes of the world as well. He puts on a very brave face, if you will… Perhaps I shouldn’t give anything more away. Obviously, it’s very important him that people respect him, and even fear him in a pure physical way. It’s important that people believe he’s dangerous. But whether or not he still is, that’s another question.

As to whether he’s more vulnerable… yes, of course, he’s definitely changed quite a bit. He’s for the first time met someone outside of the family whom he thinks he can trust and respect. He’s not quite aware of that when we start this season, but it’s there. There’s a scene from the first season, where Tywin tells him he wants Jaime to become the man he was always meant to be. ... and maybe this season is about that; not necessarily the man Tywin wants him to be, but the man he wants to be.

Read the rest of the interview at the Feature page!

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