Worlds are colliding in Game of Thrones season seven. Craig McLean is on set for the beginning of the end
It’s lunch hour in Westeros. More specifically, it’s fag-break time. Long-haired warriors stroke gingery beards and exhale cigarette smoke into the damp air. Tall-walking, earth-shaking Brienne of Tarth tucks into a polystyrene box of stodge, a carb-heavy diet the better to march on the salad-munching southerners of King’s Landing. The newly anointed King in the North, though, isn’t quite at battle stations. Jon Snow may be fully kitted out in war-council regalia, but into his leather boots are tucked not a blade or two but an iPhone and 20 Marlboro Lights.
It’s September 2016 and at Northern Ireland’s Linen Mill Film and Television Studios, hidden in the countryside 25 miles from Belfast, it’s the calm before the storm. Filming on season seven of Game Of Thrones is in its early stages. Out here near the town of Banbridge, and in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, the vast army of cast and crew are hard at work filming episode two. Even in a truncated, seven-episode season for HBO’s fire-breathing, ratings-topping TV juggernaut, there’s still a mountain to climb. And, perhaps, a Mountain to return to his skull-crushing ways.
In season six’s thrilling climax, “The Winds Of Winter”, multiple loose ends were tied up – and many knotty problems teed up. Cersei Lannister incinerated the Sept of Baelor, and many of her adversaries, allowing the now childless queen to claim the Iron Throne. But for how long? Having triumphed over the Boltons at the Battle of the Bastards, the Starks are busy uniting the families of the North under Jon Snow – the families oblivious to the newly uncovered secret of the bastard Snow’s paternal parentage: he’s half Targaryen.
This story is from the August 2017 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 2017 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Spooks Ghouls & Freaks Fools
WITH ITS ECLECTIC cast, broad comedy and supernatural farce, Rentaghost was a mainstay of BBC children’s TV from the late ’70s to the mid-’80s and like nothing else.
LOST IN THE SHADOWS
THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS OF INTERDIEW WITH THE DAMPIRE DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF LESTAT, LOUIS, CLAUDIA AND WHERE THE ANNE RICE UNIVERSE IS HEADING
NINE LIVES
ON SET FOR THE FINAL SERIES OF INSIDE NO 9. STEVE PEMBERTON AND REECE SHEARSMITH REFLECT ON THE TYRANNY OF THE TWIST
NOA'S ARC
CAESAR'S STORY MAY BE DONE AND DUSTED, BUT AS HIS CREATORS RICK JAFFA AND AMANDA SILVER TELL US, THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF TERRAIN TO EXPLORE IN - KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
TICKET TO RIDE
DIRECTOR BEN CHESSELL TAKES THE TARDIS BACK IN TIME IN HIS TWO EPISODES
SERVING FACE
HAIR AND MAKE-UP DESIGNER CLAIRE WILLIAMS ON NEW LOOKS
BABY BOOM
The TARDIS lands on a spaceship. It was very, very hard to shoot. We used real babies! I like to do things that I’ve never done before and sometimes that’s quite hard, with such a long career as mine.
BOXING CLEVER
DOCTOR WHO IS BACK AND THIS TIME IT'S TAKING OVER THE PLANET
WELCOME HOME
THE CREATIVE MINDS BEHIND THE LIVE-ACTION ADAPTATION OF THE FALLOUT GAME SERIES EXPLAIN THEIR ORIGINAL TAKE ON BETHESDA'S POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD
MONSTERS INC
THE TITANS UNITE IN HOT COLLAB GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE