A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms showrunner Ira Parker is nearly finished filming his HBO fantasy hit’s second season — and not a moment too soon.
The production largely shifted from Northern Ireland to Spain to adapt George R.R. Martin’s second Dunk and Egg novella, “The Sworn Sword,” and has been beset by apocalyptic flooding in the Canary Islands. But Parker also has plenty of reason to celebrate: The show’s debut season — which follows a wandering hedge knight (Peter Claffey) and his diminutive squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) — is nominated for nine Emmys, including outstanding drama series, and has been a critical and ratings success that’s breathed new life into the Thrones franchise.
Below, Parker wearily took a break from filming and editing season two to chat with The Hollywood Reporter about his recent challenges, his bold long-term vision for the show, those Emmy noms and his all-time favorite moments from the original Game of Thrones (including one “controversial” choice).
OK, so you’re almost done filming season two. Which season was harder?
Season one was so hard. So totally hard. The speed at which we had to shoot these things and how quickly we had to move around. It felt more like an indie film, or even a student film, than it did a Game of Thrones production. Then came season two, and it is somehow 10 times harder. This has been a brutal, brutal season. The biggest part has been this weather. We had to go somewhere for some heat and dryness because Book Two takes place in a drought.
And then, ironically enough …
Yeah, the place we chose to shoot our drought in got a once-in-a-100-year storm. It kept getting water, and we got rained out of locations. We got flooded. There were national emergencies. We had to put the crew on hiatus. We were going to go back — and then it happened again. There’s been so much stopping and starting that it’s been hard to get into a real cadence. This has been going on too long for a six-episode season, and we still have three more weeks of shooting.
But what’s helped is that Peter and Dexter are a year more experienced and have their thing down. So we’ve sidestepped some of the growing pains of season one. Season two has been a fucking bastard.
Is it still looking like around 35 minutes for each episode? Or did you stretch your legs a bit more this time?
Nope, 35. Look, the novellas are all within, you know, 5 or 10 percent of each other’s length. So that’s our plan.
Obviously, only season two has been officially greenlit at this point. But you said something in our previous interview that made some headlines: that after you adapt George’s three existing Dunk and Egg novellas, you’d like to take a multiyear break and then come back when Dexter and Peter are older and tell new canonical stories from the characters’ lives. But TV isn’t usually made that way, and I’m wondering what HBO executives think of that idea.
I mostly get eye rolls, though not completely. And look, it’ll be a function of how, you know, well the show continues to do, or continues not to do. Every season’s going to be a little bit different. What people want in their television shows changes all the time.
But yeah, I’d love to expand it from three seasons to maybe four or five. Book four, which George is working on, takes place in a very cool location. And five is the last story point of Egg as a boy. So it’s a very natural ending place for us to take a break and come back when Dexter is older. So then we can do Egg the Prince, do some politics, do some fun stuff in Summer Hall and King’s Landing, and get a different vibe where they’re not on the road all the time.
So if the show wraps and people are still OK with everything we’re doing and there’s still an appetite, let the show evolve along with our leads, with myself and with the rest of our creative team as we grow older and the world changes and we want to say different things. I think that would be a lovely way to tell a story about these two guys through the course of their lives.
But what if, hypothetically, you get those five seasons, then HBO goes, “Let’s not take a break. Let’s recast Egg with an older actor.”
No. Dexter is our Egg. Or, at least, Dexter is my Egg — I have no controlling interest in this property. But Dexter and Peter are my guys.
I know announcing premiere dates is HBO’s turf. But given how the storms caused these delays with season two production, do you still expect the show will return in, like, the first half of next year?
Yeah, absolutely.
Has George given you any new input that our readers would find interesting?
He gave me some unpublished pages — actual written prose he found in his files somewhere that he sent over, and we used them.
Oh, really? In this season?
Yeah. For the deep super fans, we got some extra stuff that — as far as George’s filing cabinets are concerned — is canon.
The show was nominated for the biggest honor on Emmy night — outstanding drama series. What was your personal reaction when you heard that?
I was in the edit. I’d set my phone to silence all notifications on everything. I was watching, funny enough, a recap of season one. Then I got a phone call, and I was like, “How is this possible?” It was from my partner, and I forgot that she’s the only exception on the phone who can get through unrestricted. I could hear in her voice immediately that there was good news coming. Personally, I had thought it was going to be that Peter or Dexter was nominated.
But I guess the big feeling was relief — to know that it wasn’t just all an illusion, that [the season] did connect with people. Personally, I figured if your lead character takes a violent shit onscreen in the first five minutes, you pretty much preclude your series from awards consideration. We consider it recognition for the whole show and, especially, for our crew in Belfast, who deserve it the most. So I was surprised, in the most lovely way, that the TV Academy holds us in high-ish esteem.
You mentioned Peter and Dexter. Was there a specific nomination the show didn’t get that you really felt deserved a nod?
Just being in the trenches with Peter and Dexter throughout this process — and especially Peter, because of the performance he pulled off, the physicality and everything that was involved. I guess maybe it’s impossible for people to see, but it is truly one of the more extraordinary pieces of work I’ve ever seen somebody manage throughout the course of a production. It was not easy, and he somehow did it with a smile on his face. And, as a function of that, Lucy Bevan and Emily Buckman, our casting directors, found the only two people on planet Earth who could play these roles.
These were two insane asks — a 7-foot giant and an 8-year-old kid who has to be your second lead. And then to put together what I think is one of the most brilliant ensemble casts. Obviously, I’m a little biased here. We had such an incredible crew of actors, and we were a first-season show. This all had to be done from scratch. It just — yeah. Yeah. Look, anyway, we’re extremely grateful for recognition of the whole show.
This is a long shot, given how much they’ve focused on moving on from the franchise, but have you ever connected with the Game of Thrones showrunners, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, by chance?
I haven’t spoken to them. I think Dan was in Belfast at one point while we were shooting, and obviously he knows a lot of people in our crew. There was talk of him maybe coming by, but it didn’t end up working out. I wish I had reached out early in the process because, if nothing else, I just would have wanted to pick their brains about what this show was going to be, about HBO, about moving your family to Belfast and, you know, the whole run of it. Nobody knows that better than them. Hopefully, one day, I’d love to have a coffee with them.
You’ve said you can’t pick a favorite among your first season of episodes because you’re too close to it. But as a hardcore fan, what’s your all-time favorite Game of Thrones episode?
I’m not sure I have favorite episodes. I have favorite moments. Two of them are Dany moments. One was when her dragons were born — oh man, that got me so excited. And the other is when she “sells” her dragons to the slave master. I’m trying to think of, like, other out-of-the-box stuff that’s not just typical fan favorites. Do you have a favorite?
I’m not sure I have one. I have a favorite battle episode. I know the cool choice is to say “Hardhome.” But I think “Battle of the Bastards” is the best. Maybe because I was on set for it, but I think the episode is, to this day, unmatched in terms of TV spectacle.
I agree with you. And, you know, actually, another of my favorite moments? This will cause some controversy, I hope. The Arya and the Hound scene on the bridge before the battle in the final season. They just have a conversation when everything is quiet. I love that scene so much. I’ve read other things into that scene that people have tried to dissuade me from. But I really love the two of them coming back together for that moment.
A version of this story will appear in a August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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