♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
DAVID NUTTER: And... action.
KRISTOFER HIVJU:
We faced those icy fucks,
looked right
into their blue eyes--
(EVERYONE LAUGHS)
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
The feast was
a wonderful sequence.
It was seventeen pages long,
in one room,
 and many different things
 going on.
SOPHIE TURNER:
 That was really fun,
the feast scene being
one of the first scenes we shot.
NUTTER: And... Act--
(EVERYONE LAUGHS)
TURNER: We had a room full
 of cast,
 and it was like coming back
to school on the first few days,
 when everyone's just so hyper
 to be back.
We were, like, having fun,
cracking jokes,
like, having a really good time.
 Yeah, it was good fun.
PETER DINKLAGE: You didn't know
Denmark was a country
till you met Nikolaj?
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU:
How f--
DANIEL PORTMAN: For characters
 like me, it's great, you know?
You get to relax
for a little bit,
you know, have a drink,
 hang out will my pals.
 And obviously after what
 happened in Season 3,
rumors obviously got around
that he's, uh, talented, so...
PORTMAN: Yeah, there's--
 there's that, that's--
It's holiday time for Pod.
Of course, it's horrible that
so many people has died,
but still, the show must go on.
Life must go on, you have to
celebrate it somehow.
 So, the only way is to get
 very drunk
and to have a lot of fun.
(CHUCKLES)
To Arya Stark,
the hero of Winterfell.
(CHEERING)
That feast scene in episode 4
is... that was a bitch.
That was a bitch to plot out,
it was a real bitch to shoot,
 and it's because so much
 of the scene,
like a lot of, I think, the best
 scenes on Game of Thrones,
are about what's not being said.
BRYAN COGMAN: If you turn off
 the sound on that scene,
 the hope would be that you're
 really following
 all of the emotional arcs
through the looks that
all the characters are giving
to each other
and that's very difficult
to pull off,
 and it takes a director of
 precision like David Nutter,
 it takes actors
 of extraordinary intelligence
 and empathy and patience.
 And it takes writers like
 David and Dan who can really
 structure it.
Yeah.
That was a fun sequence.
 We had to catch all these,
 "You looking at him looking
at you, but you're not seeing me
looking at him looking at you."
A lot of glances,
and that happens at parties.
I had to do this in a way
that everything's connected,
 but also,
 everything's not connected.
 So, it's all about a question
 of where you put people
 and how you set it up.
SEAN SAVAGE: So, the plan which
 David came up with was:
 you put them into groups
 and isolate them to a degree,
which we can do
with camera angles,
so that once a certain group
has shot out its piece,
 we have them travelling
 up the hall which connects
 to the next group.
 So, just clever choreography.
DAVID FRANCO: As far as
the lighting, it's always tough
because you want--
you have all those people
eating,
you want it shot multiple-camera
 because there's
 multiple people talking,
 and so you wanna create
 something that is flexible.
 So, my trick was candles.
FRANCO: What we did, we built
 some boxes under the candles,
 like some little riser,
and inside I had little lights,
 so the light was coming from
 the glow inside the table
and not just
a general top light.
CHARLIE WATSON: Most of our
drama scenes were action scenes
 simply in terms of the number
 of bodies that we had
 on the ground.
When you have that many moving
parts, it's always going on
and you're always painting
a picture behind the actors
 who are giving the dialogue
 or walking through the frame.
INTERVIEWER: If I was to try
and find you and Dan somewhere
in the episodes,
would I be able to?
Uh, I think, maybe.
HIVJU: A mad man! Or a king.
(LAUGHTER)
(KIT GROANS)
NUTTER: Cut.
Please take the juice
out of this cup.
(LAUGHTER)
LIAM CUNNINGHAM:
Leave it in there, leave it in,
it's good.
DAVID BENIOFF: We're there.
(CHUCKLES) Well hidden.
-INTERVIEWER: Well hidden?
-Yeah... Giant beard.
D.B. WEISS: Uh, I was concerned
 we were going to ruin that,
 but I don't think we did.
(CHUCKLES)
Yeah, let's give some notes
to the director.
What a day
at Wildling University.
(LAUGHTER)
NUTTER: Sean...
I'd smile but my beard--
my beard will pop off.
(LAUGHTER)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The funeral pyres were a big
undertaking for us.
 They were wood construction
 over a metal frame,
 that being because Sam Conway,
 special effects,
had to have burn rigs
inside all of these pyres
to be able to burn them
at different-- at varying rates.
SAM CONWAY:
 The heroes lying down,
 we did a process
 of toughened glass
 and bulletproof plastic
 underneath.
 And then the hero would go in
 and put the torch
underneath the actor,
uh, and then you'd see--
beneath them, you'd see
the flames spread.
PAUL GHIRARDANI:
 There would be flame reacting
 around the sides of them,
but not actually touching them.
But because you're seeing the
flame through glass,
for all intents and purposes
you're seeing flame,
 which is really extraordinary.
WATSON: Once we'd finished
 with the real people
 in the funeral pyres,
they were switched out
by the props department
 for burning bodies,
 chicken wire bodies
 that were costumed
 'cause we were actually
 setting fire to the funeral
 pyres for real.
It was a huge burn,
in terms of fire.
 So, we had fire support,
 medical support,
 and that was the classic,
 biggest, widest shot
 of Winterfell,
 with the hugest effect
 in the front of it.
CONWAY: What I remember
 is that it was incredibly hard
 to put out,
which-- I did say it would
be very difficult to put out.
(CHUCKLES)
 Gets very hot.
 Everyone has to move back
 'cause they feel the flames.
I knew the shot was over
when I saw Bran running past me.
(LAUGHING) I was like,
"Well, it's gotta be over
if Bran's started
to walk again."
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Episode three
is such a massive battle,
and so many people
fall during that episode,
and part of that is about
our heroes, you know,
the characters
that we really know,
and part of it is just seeing
the sheer number
 of other folks who fell.
 We've got real pyres that were
 built by our department,
 and then the VFX team
 extended them so you can see
 there's actually thousands
 and thousands of fallen.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(FIRE RUMBLING)
NUTTER: So, what was important
 with respect to the funeral
on episode four
was the fact that...
I wanted to make sure that...
there's some big-scope stuff
that was important,
but also, there were some
really intimate moments
between the characters
that I didn't want to lose.
There was a moment in which
Dany says goodbye to Jorah,
 where Sansa says goodbye
 to Theon,
so I wanted to make sure that...
 that was really covered
 in the proper fashion.
That was really hard.
I remember right before my take,
 putting the pin on Alfie,
 David Nutter came up,
 the director, and he was like,
"You never got to say goodbye."
"And you never told him...
that you saw him as a Stark."
And then I was, like, bawling,
because I'm thinking, like,
 I will never properly
 get to say goodbye to Alfie
as Theon. Like, that will be
so crazy.
It was something in which...
We all have situations
in our life,
where people die
at the wrong time,
and things happen
before you expect it to happen,
where you say to yourself,
"I wish I had said this,
I wish I had done that."
So, I wanted to make sure
that there was something
gnawing at her.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
 She took that nugget,
made it into something special.
She's that great of an actress.
 She really did a tremendous
 job there with that.
The emotion was easy to capture
because the emotion was--
was very real.
These are people who have been
working together,
 some of them for 10 years.
 Yeah, it was
 a very difficult thing
 to say goodbye.
Even if the ceremony
was fictional,
the goodbye and the emotions
in the goodbye were very real.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
TOMMY DUNNE: The new Scorpion
 this year is phenomenal.
 The thing with Dave and Dan,
 they just want
 to scale everything up.
 Everything had to be
 better, bolder, for this year.
I was hoping to use
the same one again,
thinking, "Oh, it was great
last year."
I mean, what could you
possibly--
What more could you want?
♪ (ENERGETIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
We saw in Season 7 that Qyburn
had invented this Scorpion,
 this giant, dragon-killing
 Scorpion,
 and it didn't quite work.
So, Qyburn went back
to the drawing board,
and he made an even larger,
more powerful Scorpion.
DUNNE: What we need
 to create with this one
is to make it bigger, stronger,
and a bit more dynamic.
 It's 65 percent bigger
 than we did previously
 on Season 7.
 Euron has added a few
 little touches for himself.
 The seat on the back,
and added four more cross limbs
 for more power
and a bit more... madness.
 The bolts are a nice design,
a bit more of a barbaric style.
 When you see it first,
 it'll be in this closed mold,
 and when you see it
 the second time,
once it fires the projectile,
it leaves the limb,
it opens up, and it rotates
so it'll rip open
anything that it hits.
PILOU ASBAEK:
It's absolutely incredible work.
The whole production this season
is just amazing,
what they've been creating
for us actors.
You really feel that you're part
of the biggest show in the world
 when you're sitting
 on a Scorpion
and everything is just
going around.
You really feel... wonderful.
We have Euron
sitting on the seat,
he's in the back,
he's like king of the castle,
 being swung around
 by four brutes.
 So these guys are lifting him
 up and down,
 doing the trajectory
 left and right.
But he loved it. He loved it.
He'd have been
still on it if he could.
(BOOMING)
I'm gonna be brutally honest.
I've talked to my wife about it.
 'Cause you have to talk
 to someone, right?
 And I've mentioned to my wife,
 "How awesome is it
 that I killed a dragon?
And I killed it
with a Scorpion."
Episode 4 has this little
thing called Rhaegal's death.
(RHAEGAL YELPS)
STEVE KULLBACK: And his demise
is some of the gnarliest-looking
 animation I've ever seen,
 where they did an amazing job
 putting that together.
(RHAEGAL SCREECHES)
(WATER CRASHES)
In the end,
we have a couple of shots
 of the destruction
 of Dany's ships.
So again, we kind of are in
a completely digital scenario
to sort of show how these boats,
up close,
puncture into the ship
and tear it apart.
 And the last shot
 is a very special one.
 It's one of Tyrion
 having this long shot,
 running across the deck.
That was another oner,
but kind of a cheated oner.
So we had him
running around the deck,
 we had some physical
 effects there,
 -but a lot of it we did later.
-MAN: ...2, 1, go!
DINKLAGE: Love it. Love it.
Um, and when they're done
in one shot,
like this is,
one continuous thing,
 it doesn't let the viewer
 off the hook.
STEFEN FANGMEIER:
 All the boat work
 for Game of Thrones
 essentially is done
 on a set piece
 that's out in this location
 in Bainbridge.
Everything that you've ever seen
on a boat in Game of Thrones
where people are standing,
walking or talking on a boat
has been done on that ship.
It's surrounded by green screen,
 and everything around the boat
 will have to be replaced
 with CG water
 or water photography.
And then at one point,
the railing gets blown away,
which the section that gets
blown away is actually CG, so,
 when all the pieces
 come together,
 you see the special effects,
 you see the CG,
 a lot of atmospherics,
 you see Peter
 going up to the water,
 it's a pretty spiffy moment.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(DISTANT SHOUTING)
♪ (PULSATING MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
NICK WILKINSON:
 The King's Landing
 city wall and gates,
we sort of saw this
as a sort of fortification
 around the whole
 of King's Landing,
 loosely based around
 the walls of Dubrovnik,
 which have a particular
 sort of style to the stonework
 which we were trying
 to hint at.
 By the time
 the platforms are on,
we're looking at not far off
from about 57 feet,
56, 57 feet to the top
of the platforms.
 The towers are 49 feet high,
the wall is about 200 feet long.
 The King's Landing parlay,
the challenge is the size
of the set.
So we quickly decided
and convinced everybody
that most of the close-up work
would be done
 on a separate set piece that
 would be built on the ground,
 right on the ground,
 and would put them
probably at about eight feet up.
FRANCO: So you're able to talk
 to the actor,
bring the camera in at a proper,
you know, reasonable level
to be able to achieve
-all the shots we had.
-NUTTER: Stand down!
FRANCO:  But it's
 a little bit of, you know,
 Hollywood magic.
FANGMEIER:  Another challenge
was that, of course, this set...
is incredibly visible
from the surrounding area.
I mean, and the big concern,
of course for this season
more than ever,
was the secrecy of the plot.
In other words, um,
we wouldn't want to give away
that Missandei
is going to be executed,
 so having her stand up there,
 you know, 40 feet high,
 there was no way to hide that.
So again, later on,
we're adding her in there now,
often times as a digi-double,
but for the closeup work,
we shot her separately on stage
 to composite her on that
per location so we could
put it together in the end
as a seamless "Oh, this has all
been shot in the same place."
♪ (DARK MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
When I read that, it made sense
to me immediately.
I was like, "When is she ever
going to do something
 when someone tells her to do?"
 She's not going to go, "Okay."
 She's going to think,
 "Fuck you."
Also, it's, you know,
Dany's best friend,
so she's like, "Fuck you, too."
She's fun at parties,
that's all I can say. (LAUGHS)
♪ (DARK MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
The parley is a Hail Mary pass
from Tyrion.
He's hoping that maybe,
if he brings up Cersei's child,
 he can talk some kind of sense
 into Cersei.
NUTTER: Tyrion talks
 to his sister
 in a way that you think
that she may actually listen
to him for a change.
She may listen to her heart
and listen to what he has to say
 and understand it.
You've always loved
your children...
more than yourself.
So we wanted to be able to just
hang out there just long enough
to have it so that...
you would think
that she may change,
but she's got this look
on her face
where it's just like...
that's just who I am.
I can't help it.
And Lena's a tremendous actor,
and that played out beautifully.
MAN: Bravo marker. ***
LENA HEADEY: There's such a kind
 of basic kid in her still,
so I think she sees him
in the moment asking her
 to do something for him...
I beg you, if not for yourself,
then for your child.
And she can't do what he's--
She cannot.
It's like a kid in a--
She can't do
what he tells her to do.
Because that would be...
surrendering.
If you have any last words,
now is the time.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
NATHALIE EMMANUEL: To play
that despair, but also that fire
 and finding that duality
 in that moment,
 it was quite challenging.
But David Nutter,
who's, you know, wonderful,
was really great and supportive
and was really good at helping
to support me in that scene.
It's sad, it's a sad moment
for her 'cause she's...
to have liberation and then
have it just taken from you...
It's heartbreaking.
Dracarys.
♪ (DRUM ROLL AND CRESCENDO) ♪
(SWORD SLICES)
(BODY THUDS)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
For Grey Worm, losing her...
is just, like...
there's nothing left.
There's just nothing,
he has nothing left now.
 She has taught him
 how to be a human being.
Like, her and Dany have nurtured
 him into being human.
 And then it's just taken away.
And the final shot
of Dany walking away,
 we knew it would be
 the last shot,
 there wasn't any question
 of how we were going
 to go out of the episode,
 so it was really a question
 of how Emilia would convey...
 a kind of almost unimaginable
sense of anger and rage
and vengeance...
 while walking
 towards the camera
 and past the camera
 without saying a word,
but, uh, I would say she did it.
♪ (DISSONANT CRESCENDO) ♪
