This is an episode about paying the price,
paying a completely disproportionate price
for the mistakes that you've made in the past,
and that sometimes mistakes have disproportionate consequences.
DAVID BENIOFF: Everything changes after this point.
Ned's death was so pivotal at the end of season one,
and everything changed from that point.
And even though there have been many big moments since then,
there's nothing that compares to the Red Wedding.
You do want to get people on side,
and then you want to sort of pull the rug from underneath them.
That's what wonderful drama is about.
BENIOFF: So much focus was paid to the Red Wedding,
but so many other moments in the episode,
whether with Jon Snow or Bran.
I think it's the best episode we've done.
D.B. WEISS: A lot of the reason for having this much Dany in this episode
is that I think it fits and it flows very well,
and I think it also helps serve as a misdirection away from the Red Wedding.
BENIOFF: It was just kind of a surreal moment,
watching something that you've waited for, for so long,
and you could picture in your head for so long.
To finally see it unfold
was both gratifying and horrifying in equal measures.
This was an event that was not only from the books,
but it was one of the primary reasons that we wanted to make this show.
We thought that this was a...
Getting to the Red Wedding was such a watershed moment for us
in that in the story we were working with
that we just felt like if we could get to this thing,
if we could make it to this place,
the whole ride would've been well worth it.
BENIOFF: I just remember reading those scenes
and calling Dan and saying that,
if we make it this far, we're going to have an audience.
People are not going to be able to give up on the series
because those scenes are so incredible.
The stakes are real, and the jeopardy feels real,
and the danger to all of these characters feels real.
So the moments you spend with them feel more important to you
because you're not wondering, "How are they gonna get out of this one?"
You're wondering, "Are they gonna get out of this one?"
BENIOFF: You don't know where it's going.
One thing is for sure, it's not going to be your classic good-versus-evil conflict.
It's much more about the human journeys,
and just as in real life sometimes,
the best of us don't make it to the end.
DAVID NUTTER: When they offered me to come and direct
episode nine and ten of season three,
I was in a complete state of panic for about six months
because I knew how important it was, because I know the fan base is so loyal.
This is not a show which you're just a viewer of,
but you're a loyal follower of,
and something that actually matters to an audience
because of how powerful these characters are
and how ingrained they are into the audience's psyche.
What we really wanted in those opening moments of the episode
was for people to believe that Robb has rediscovered his strength again.
I'm sure people bring certain expectations to the show,
and assuming that something terrible
is going to happen to people at some point, and all of that stuff.
And we really wanted to misdirect as much as we could.
What happens with Robb and Catelyn in the opening sequence
is really an opportunity for Robb to bring his mother back into his tent
in more ways than one.
This scene specifically is about showing the mother and son reuniting.
You're getting to see us at a stage where life's not been great.
And in this moment, it is a beat of us relaxing a little.
Robb's decided that he needs Catelyn again, and that she is a very clever woman,
and certainly was by Ned's side for all those decades
and learned so much from him.
He's asking Catelyn, basically, because he's aware that he has excluded her.
It was an excellent scene to remind people just in the moment,
when you go into the Twins, what's at stake here.
The hope is that you believe he's really got a chance here.
He's thought of something that might just work.
It's actually a very solid plan,
except for the Walder Frey of at all.
That's where the problem comes in.
I'm asking your advice.
We have enough men?
If Walder Frey cooperates.
If reinforcements arrive from King's Landing before we take the castle,
we'll be caught between Tywin's army and the sea.
We'll lose the war and die the way Father died.
Or worse.
We had a very personal tragedy on the series of Game of Thrones last year,
when Martin Kenzie, who was a DP on my episodes, passed away.
And everyone loved him so much.
Michelle was a real close friend of his as well.
And we got to the scene, and we shot her close-up,
and she was saying this wonderful line of,
"Let's show them what it feels like to lose what they love."
I walked up to her, and we'd done a couple of takes,
and I said, "Let's do this one for Martin."
And she was amazing
'cause she understood that. She understood what I was talking about.
Because so much of these characters, what they do is
they put so much of their own personal life in this
because it is so encompassing.
So it was really quite a powerful moment, and I think she hit it out of the park.
Show them how it feels to lose what they love.
(HORSE NEIGHING)
(SOLDIERS URGING HORSES)
Well, it's the first time Robb has met Walder Frey.
So it's the first time of him taking in these quite odd surroundings
and these strange people,
and Walder Frey being such a strange man.
It's always a pleasure to work with David Bradley anyway. He's fantastic.
I had one scene with him in the first season,
when I had to go and ask him if we could cross at the Freys' Crossing.
The actor playing Walder Frey, David, such a tremendously strong, powerful actor,
and such a wonderful presence
that my whole goal was to let him dance, let him do his thing.
What was also important was us surrounding him
with the proper wives, daughters,
whatever the various relationships were involved there.
One of them was supposed to be queen.
Now none of them are.
This is Arwyn, my daughter.
My daughter Walda, my daughter Dervva,
my daughter Waldra.
And there was laughing offset because he is very funny
with how he was playing the character, and very dark as well.
DAVID BRADLEY: He is a monster, I suppose.
But there's a kind of comic energy to it as well,
which made me laugh a lot when I read it,
in spite of all the cruelty.
He does that dialogue amazingly well.
Lists and lists and lists of names which are extremely similar.
It was good to get the rehearsals out of the way,
so that all the giggling was kind of... (GIGGLING)
"Okay, we can't giggle anymore.
"We'll just giggle now all that we have to giggle."
He did it brilliantly, and it's funny, but you're not meant to laugh
because actually there's something incredibly sad about this as well.
My hope was that the audience would feel just as uncomfortable as Robb Stark and Catelyn
and the rest of the Stark clan would feel
once they walk into that room with Walder Frey.
My ladies.
All men should keep their word, kings most of all.
I was pledged to marry one of you and I broke that vow.
The fault is not with you.
Any man would be lucky to have any one of you.
I did what I did not to slight you, but because I loved another.
I know these words cannot set right the wrong I have done to you and your house.
I beg your forgiveness
and pledge to do all I can to make amends so the Freys of the Crossing
and the Starks of Winterfell may once again be friends.
Walder Frey doesn't particularly care about the broken hearts
of one of his dozens and dozens of daughters.
What he cares about is the political contract that was violated.
The thing that delights Walder is that Robb has broken his promise
and had to come crawling back to beg forgiveness
because he needs Walder now.
He can't possibly win the war without Walder.
She knows that she is the cause of all of this.
So she looks to Robb
and decides to do all that she can to improve the situation.
BENIOFF: Walder doesn't want to let him off so easy.
Even though it appears that they can make amends
by having this marriage between Edmure and Roslin Frey,
Walder wants to make him walk over the hot coals first.
The idea was on some level to make it feel like
that was the ordeal that Robb had to go through,
and that the wedding was just the happy aftermath
of him triumphing and overcoming that obstacle.
In Walder's case, it's just his way of making it more fun
by giving the impression that his intentions are honorable.
All he wants is an apology,
and as far as they're concerned, that's all they need to do
and everything will be okay.
But, of course, he's reeling them in, like a fish.
I can always see what's going on beneath a dress.
Been at this a long time.
I bet when you take that dress off, everything stays right where it is.
Doesn't drop an inch.
Your king says he betrayed me for love.
I say he betrayed me for firm tits and a tight fit.
And I can respect that.
When I was your age, I'd have broken 50 oaths to get into that without a second thought.
Well, I've enough room in the hall for you lot.
We'll set up tents outside with food and ale for the rest of your men.
Thank you, my lord.
Well, let's get ready.
The wine will flow red
and the music will play loud
and we'll put this mess behind us.
(METALLIC CLANGING)
The important part of this sequence was the fact that Dany had eyes for Daario,
and Jorah not liking the fact that she had interest in someone else.
So it was really all about how to position them
so that Jorah was in between them at first,
and then Daario walks around the corner,
and he's then watching the two of them together.
So it was important to place them in a way
that we could get him to observe this in some respect.
Jorah has split feelings about it because she...
He witnesses her become more self-reliant,
and there's pain in that because he's a little bit more dispensable.
This is where we enter the city. Very few guards. They know me.
They let me inside...
We're not gonna sneak an army through a back gate.
Well, in Morocco, we've used two locations ostensibly.
Essaouira, and here we are in Ouarzazate, in the desert.
A lot of the time, you're driving around going,
"This is just natural beauty.
"This is actually here."
We've just had a ball, as you can see.
A lot of trees to put up and tents to build and a world to create here.
I think we've made 15 tents in all.
We've made one obviously very large tent with a very solid structure.
JACKSON: Dany's tent is almost like a pavilion.
We wanted it to have some sort of presence to it.
They've used a lot of antique Indian textiles in the tent,
which are quite strong colors.
JACKSON: We found some absolutely exquisite antique
weaving and embroiders and stuff.
So I've used all those on her cushions.
We've got rattan screens around the tent,
which will continue the theme of the Dothraki from previous encampments.
JACKSON: She's also going to be in blue.
So I feel that, that'll be rather lovely in there,
with all those dusty, burned oranges and sandy colors.
We wanted to bring her color up a little bit.
And blue, to me, was the obvious choice in many ways
because the Dothraki color is blue, the precious color.
So that seemed to make complete sense.
And it's beautiful with her silver hair.
If we are truly her loyal servants, we'll do whatever needs to be done,
no matter the cost, no matter our pride.
(WIND HOWLING)
SAMWELL: We're west of Castle Black, but the Nightfort's closest to us.
It was the first castle on the Wall.
The Watch abandoned it during the reign of King Jaehaerys I.
Hannah and John, who, of course, play Sam and Gilly,
there was a great kinship that they acquired during this episode.
John and Hannah have done such a beautiful job
of bringing this unlikely romance to life.
It's a waking of a relationship that I think is quite beautiful and sweet in many respects.
When Samwell joined the Night's Watch,
when his father forced him to join the Night's Watch,
he gave up on the hope for any kind of domestic happiness
or any kind of domestic situation with a woman at all.
Gilly has never known a life with just one person in it before.
She's never known a life where anybody's really cared about her before
as much as Sam cares about her.
Gilly, for her part, the only man she's ever known
was her father/husband, who was a complete monster.
Gilly is even weaker than Sam,
in an even more desperate situation than Sam,
and yet she has this incredible inner strength.
Samwell never thought he would find himself in the role of protector to a woman
and a helpless baby.
I think she's a great example for him in the kind of resilience that she has.
When we was doing the last shot of Sam behind the Wall,
I had it in the back of my mind to play it that
without Gilly, he wouldn't have been as desperate to survive as he was.
(DONKEY BRAYING)
I think the scene with the Hound and Arya is something very special
in the sense that they are together,
but there's so much hate between the two of them.
We so loved watching the two of them together.
Some of the scenes almost feel like they just kind of write themselves
because you're like, "That's exactly what Maisie's Arya would say at this moment.
"That's exactly how Rory's Hound would react."
Arya definitely surprises the Hound in that she's a lot tougher-minded
than any little girl he's ever met before.
But there's a moral code at work there, where you don't kill innocent people.
It says a lot about how important it is to her to stop this thing from happening.
That she would actually beg this person
who she hates as much as anybody else in the world at this point.
Don't! Don't kill him.
Dead rats don't squeak.
You're so dangerous, aren't you? Saying scary things to little girls.
Killing little boys and old people. A real hard man you are.
- More than anyone you know. - You're wrong.
I know a killer.
- A real killer. - That so?
You'd be like a kitten to him. He'd kill you with his little finger.
That him?
- No. - Good.
There's a definite comedy element to that scene.
It's a tricky thing to do, and it doesn't always work,
but I thought it worked beautifully here.
At the end of the scene, she's not above giving him a good bashing upside the head.
The one bit I really struggled with was
smacking the guy over the head with the spoke at the end.
It was really all about just putting the angle in the right place
and a nice sound effect, and it worked beautifully.
To me, it looked like I was doing it right, but obviously the camera's over here,
so you've got to try and do it so it doesn't look right to yourself,
but it looked right to everyone else.
Where are we?
The Gift, I think.
We found a tower not that far from central Belfast in some woodland.
It's just a funny little tower that's left over. Half the top's gone.
So we decided to make it look like an old windmill.
The exterior is actually on location,
an actually abandoned building itself.
So all we did is just introduce the elements of the abandoned village below.
The art director drew up a great windmill sail,
like a medieval-type one, with all tatty material.
And I found some great references of very early windmills.
And we just built this big old bit of it that's hung off the side.
CAMERON: The windmill's destroyed and old.
There's lots of debris on the road.
It's raining. We've got to create that sort of atmosphere.
I don't see any.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
It's as good a place to shelter as any.
We can drink some blood while we wait.
I don't need much.
(CAWING)
(PANTING) Only one old man and eight good horses.
What's one old man doing with eight horses?
He breeds them for the Watch.
How's he keep folks from stealing them?
The Watch protects him.
ORELL: Not today, they don't.
He's selling horses, he's got some gold in there.
TORMUND: And proper steel.
ORELL: Let's carve him up.
We just take the horses and go.
The old man's no threat.
I keep telling you.
He's an old man. A spear through the heart's a better way to die
than coughing up your last with no one but your horses to hear.
The Watch might send a few men...
Today, we were shooting and we were over on the other side of that wall,
and basically we're looking over there on the hut,
and we see an old man with lots of horses
and wondering why he has so many horses.
The plan is to kill the man, take the horses. (CHUCKLES)
What was important here was that Jon Snow didn't want the wildlings
to needlessly kill an old man.
Jon's making perfectly rational arguments about why they shouldn't kill this person,
why they should just steal the horses and go,
but I think Orell sees beneath those arguments.
I think Ygritte probably sees beneath them, too,
even though she doesn't want to,
to the real reason he doesn't want to kill this person.
Orell has told her a number of times,
"You shouldn't trust this guy. He's not one of us."
WEISS: Jon alerts the horse breeder, when he clangs his sword against the rock.
The horses hear that and they look up and they start neighing.
You need to have him stop Ygritte for long enough from shooting this guy,
'cause he knows what a good shot she is, and you have to play that.
This moment where she's forced to miss the shot...
There's this great look from her as she turns to Jon,
just wondering what the hell he's up to.
The scene starts off where Arya is really by herself,
standing by a log, looking at the Twins.
And you see that she sees the banners of the Starks.
She knows that her brother and her mother may be there.
And I think there's this real sense of longing
and, "I'm almost there. I'm almost there."
BENIOFF: As bad as things get for Arya,
I think there's always a little bit of hope that there's something out there better
'cause she's seen it and she's lived it.
For the Hound, it's always been pain from the time he was five years old
and had his face pressed into the embers.
You don't think of the Hound as a master psychologist or anything,
but it feels like, in this case, what's going through Arya's head
is probably almost exactly what the Hound tells her is going through her head.
He understands that she's afraid, and he knows why she's afraid.
Fear is something that he understands.
He knows fear when he sees it. He's seen it a lot.
NUTTER: Then she turns right back around to him,
and basically puts her dukes up and punches him right back verbally.
This is somebody who has gotten so hardened
and all but lost any hope that something good can happen to her.
And I think that the fact that she's daring to feel that again,
almost makes her double-down on the hardness.
The Hound's not used to people talking to him that way.
He's not used to big, tough men talking to him that way.
He's certainly not used to a little 5' tall girl speaking to him that way.
NUTTER: I told her to, as she talked about the Hound and the way he looks and so forth,
"Look at his scars and examine with your eyes as you tell him this stuff."
WEISS: She's very wary of letting herself feel too much
because feeling too much only leads to pain, in her experience.
She ends it as kind of a...
At least in the voice of a stone-cold killer.
And then, at the end of the scene, we see her face.
We see that there's still a tiny bit of little girl left in there.
Arya's going on a dark path.
A lot of these characters are going on dark paths,
but Arya's might be the darkest of them all.
Someday I'm gonna put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
How are we going to get past the Wall?
My uncle said it's 700 feet high.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
How did you get past it?
Got in a boat and rowed past the Bay of Seals.
It would take us two months to get to the Bay of Seals.
Some climb straight up the ice.
Even Hodor's not strong enough to climb the Wall with me on his back.
HODOR: Hodor.
Nineteen castles guard the Wall.
Only three are still manned.
-(THUNDER RUMBLES) - Hodor!
ISAAC HEMPSTEAD WRIGHT: A warg, I think it's
a person who can see through the eyes of animals,
or I think even people, in some cases, and live through them.
WEISS: Bran's always known from the beginning
that there's been something unusual about him.
I think it's always been something he started out afraid of,
and it's something he's gradually become interested in and infatuated with.
Like when he sees Jojen in his dream, and then actually meets him.
He's starting to try and control them, but that's what he needs Jojen for,
to teach him how to.
This is the first place he ever exercises control over it.
This is the first place where, with Jojen Reed's help, he realizes that
it's not something that happens to him, it's something that he can make happen.
He's trying to explain it to Bran, who...
It's very new to him. He doesn't quite understand
what's going on or what anything is.
When Orell and Bran are warging,
it's the creepiest thing. Their eyes roll back in their heads.
Isaac, who plays Bran, can actually do it, like, 98%.
His pupils just disappeared somewhere in the back of his head
and his eyes were completely white.
It was terrifying and really, actually, funny,
and David looked at me and said, "I think I just saved you a bunch of money."
BENIOFF: So we just went a little bit farther with it.
We just turned the eyeballs a little bit farther back,
so they're really looking into their own brains.
When it happens to him, we see Hodor's eyes flicker for a second.
As you do, you know what's passed between them.
We wanted to take this out of the realm of the natural
and make it clear that this was something supernatural that was happening to him.
It just looked good and creepy, and it was a good signal that they're in warg mode.
So much of the time as a director when you're looking for locations
it's about, "Where can I put this where this will be seen,
"or where can this be happening where this can be seen?"
There's a storm coming, which is why Bran and company take refuge in the tower.
We wanted to make it so that the geography all matched,
so you understood where things were and where people were, and so forth.
But also, with this sequence, it was a big rain sequence
going to be happening in the show as well,
so we had to find a location that actually could provide us that opportunity to do that.
There was no way to really tie those two stories together
as effectively as we felt we needed to without having that rain.
So we allotted for fake rain.
Sorry to destroy the illusion, it's all fake.
Cut his throat or he'll tell the crows we're here.
Keeping the rain going for three days is quite a big ask
on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere.
We had half a mile of hose laid out to pump water up the hill.
The hardest stunt was to stand in that rain for three days in a row.
It took three days to shoot that one scene,
and it's probably the toughest thing I've ever done.
HIVJU: It was very intense to have all this rain just pouring down on you.
And to make it look good on screen, you had to use a lot of it.
You're using 500 gallons a minute from the spinners that we were using.
So that's a lot of water.
Normal, regular rain doesn't register on the cameras,
so the droplets have to be this big.
And it just feels like someone emptied bucket after bucket of water on you.
The costumes got very damp, obviously, and they got very heavy.
But we were all involved, so everybody got soaking wet as well.
She looks sharp.
(PRAYING INDISTINCTLY)
Do it.
I told you. He's still one of them.
Go on, boy.
Go on!
(GRUNTS)
(EXHALES)
He's a crow. He'll always be a crow.
And here's his crow wife guarding him.
He'll stab us in the back first chance he gets.
- Kill him. -(GRUNTS)
This was a very tricky scene to shoot.
There was a lot of rain, obviously,
and a lot of action that had to be shot quickly.
Well, I had a small fight with Ygritte.
He was pinning me down, and I was desperately trying to wrestle.
But, of course, it was futile.
Rosie playing Ygritte, she's a tough character, tough girl.
She's done very well.
Doesn't matter what wet protection you wear
or what you put underneath the costumes,
the guys are going to get cold.
You just can't beat it, I'm afraid.
LESLIE: it was a couple of takes in,
and I think David Nutter, who's just fabulous, he said,
"Let's get a mat down here."
I was like, "Do you know what? I can't get wetter. I can't get any more muddier.
"Bugger it, it's fine."
We have the direwolves that come in and take out two of the wildlings.
These we do just on a wire pull.
KULLBACK: We take the wolf, and we shoot them green screen
actually knocking down an animal wrangler dressed in a green costume,
and then we size them up and composite them.
So that when it all comes together, it looks like it's the wolf knocking down the wildling.
A fight then ensues, where they're gonna try and kill Jon Snow.
But Jon takes out Orell.
Of anyone that Jon's met through this series,
the person he wants to put a sword through most is Orell.
HERBERT: For the kill on Orell, we use a combination.
We'll do a fake sword going through a certain camera angle,
then we'll use plant-ons to show the actual blade through Orell's back.
CROOK: So I had the blade of the sword sticking out of my back, all bloodied,
and then using various camera angles, when he actually thrust it in,
it went to the side of me.
(SNARLS)
(GRUNTING)
(SCREAMS)
(YELLS)
(BONES CRUNCHING)
(GROANING)
You were right the whole time.
There's a reason why we use the real wolves, and there's a reason we use a real bear.
The real thing always looks better.
If we could find real dragons, we'd use them.
In this case, we had a very highly trained eagle.
I think she was called Princess.
Princess landed always on the glove part of his forearm.
And then, obviously, because you wanted to see the attack,
there was food here and pulled his forearm up here,
so that when Princess landed, it came for his throat.
It was very cleverly done.
(URGES HORSE)
(PANTING)
We did a couple of really cool shots of Yunkai.
Daario and Jorah are about to go into the city and have their battle.
They're outside the gates and they're talking about what they're setting out to do.
We needed a shot that said,
"Here's where they are, here's where they're going,
"and here's how impressive this city is."
So we have to figure out quickly how to fly over the Harpy,
see the whole city at night, and then direct everyone's attention
to one cart outside the wall, where two guys are standing.
What it made for is a majestic, this-city-is-really-powerful moment,
but at the same time, had the practical use
of showing everyone the geography of where these guys were and where they were going.
(DAARIO WHISTLES)
The process for bringing our fights or our action to the screen
really starts with the script pages.
We then will choreograph these fights with the stunt doubles and the stunt team,
overseen by the sword master, C.C. Smiff.
We then bring the actors in, and gradually, we train them up for that fight scene.
They have to run this and run this and run this
because it was important to get it exactly right.
You're throwing metal around, and people can get really hurt.
DUNNE: That's quite a good fight, quite an elaborate fight
because we got three different weapons.
Totally different weapons in this scenario.
It was important to allow each of the characters to have their own way of fighting,
and also have a chance for the three of them to, within their three different styles,
associate and help with each other and save each other from various peril.
BENIOFF: These different characters come from different schools of combat.
Grey Worm was raised to be an Unsullied and learned the three ways of the spear.
And Jorah is a Westerosi knight, so he's got a very traditional style of swordsmanship.
And there's Daario, who grew up in the fighting pits, completely unconventional.
He's much more freestyle.
The bulk of this fight was really about tracking three people through the fight,
making sure that they were in the same place at the same time
every run through the fight.
NUTTER: I would set up, "This is where they're gonna start,
"this is where it's gonna happen,
"this is what I was thinking, and go make it great."
(SOLDIERS SHOUTING)
Come on! What do you got, huh?
(ALL CHEERING)
Gemma Jackson and Michele Clapton are such wonderful artists.
There's so much detail and richness in everything they do.
We did the world of the Freys two seasons ago, I think, now, but it was very brief.
In the season one,
we built a lovely, very grubby little space, and all these unattractive family members.
CLAPTON: I want them always to look a bit damp and a bit dreary and a bit unstructured.
Everything is just issued.
They probably only get one costume ever.
They're just a poor, poor bunch of people.
The costume is pretty much all done by the time it came to the fitting.
They found this amazing... I like to call it brocade.
Out of all the costumes, this, to my mind, looks the most medieval.
All the little details are just amazing.
I remember trying it on and thinking, "Wow. This is it." (CHUCKLES)
And she had to be veiled, of course, and the reveal is, actually, she's very pretty.
You have to imagine Edmure is a little vain.
Even though he doesn't really want to do this, we thought he would still make an effort.
We thought that Robb and Edmure and all those people have to be respectful.
And we made a new cloak for Robb as well, actually, which has his sigil.
Well, I was very excited when I eventually got a new costume.
It's season three, it's episode nine,
so we've done three full seasons, and I've been in the same costume.
Catelyn's basically been in the same costume for practically all three seasons
because she goes on the road.
But Michele decided that I would have this.
I really thought Michelle should wear her neck pads.
It is her national costume.
The work involved in the sewing and the embroidery of the fishes,
'cause they're all little fishes.
I don't know if you can see that detail,
but they're just a delight to wear, and they're comfortable.
CLAPTON: Talisa is actually in a new dress, but it looks exactly like her other dresses.
But we just, this morning, put a scarf again around her neck.
This dress does up at the back, as opposed to at the front.
I'm dressed pretty much the same throughout the entire thing.
I think I have a scarf at one point, which was very exciting.
Blackfish Tully, we even thought, even he'd have to make an effort,
so we found this dusty old velvet robe.
Blackfish doesn't really want to be at the wedding.
He's doing his duty and he's bored out of his mind.
It was a location which was onstage, a big cathedral-type setting.
JACKSON: I thought, "What can I do with these walls?
"I gotta do something new. We're all sick of the sight of stone walls."
I had a wonderful reference I found from some Dutch painting, actually.
So I decided to make it feel like very, very old and destroyed leather,
leather that had been beaten and painted gold.
They distressed the set in a very shabby chic way for the Freys.
The guy has just let the place go, doesn't want to spend any money on it.
You imagine this must be a hellhole to live in.
The fabrics and the drapes are ripped,
so you know that there's very little care about the environment,
and that permeates into the way he treats his people.
- I am hers... - I am his...
-...and she is mine... -...and he is mine...
BOTH: ...from this day until the end of my days.
MEERA: Is that safe?
OSHA: They're long gone.
BRANDON: You were right.
I can get inside Summer's mind whenever I want.
Of course you can.
North of the Wall there are wildlings who can control all sorts of animals.
But you did a lot more than that.
You got inside Hodor's mind.
They can't do that north of the Wall?
No one can do that. Anywhere.
Bran has come to realize that he is on a mission that's of great importance.
Or at least he believes that, because Jojen's been telling him this,
and it all meshes with the dreams he's been having,
and it all seems to make sense that he has to find the three-eyed raven.
He's not going to take his little brother north of the Wall.
They all know how dangerous it is out there.
And so Bran decides that there is a safer place for Rickon,
and that Osha, who they've come to trust so much,
can take Rickon to what he assumes will be a safe place.
It's really an opportunity for Bran
to really be the big brother that Robb Stark and Jon Snow had always been to him.
He's been groomed for this for a while
and takes his responsibilities very seriously, even though he's such a young man.
And he's been forced to grow up quickly
because his father died and his older brothers all went off,
so the last one left that he's really protecting, in his mind, is Rickon,
and the best way to protect Rickon is for them to split up.
I'm your brother. I have to protect you.
Right now I have to protect you.
The young actor playing Rickon was just tremendous.
He's become a fantastic young actor,
and it was wonderful to see that really happen
and see the heartbreak of this actor leaving the series at this point in the show.
What's been one of the really rewarding things about working on the show is
watching our kid actors grow up
and grow up so beautifully and with such aplomb into their roles.
You don't need to treat them any different way,
except for the fact that you wanna let them know that they're safe
and you wanna let them know that they can go for it and try something,
and if it doesn't work out, we'll adjust it and change it.
So it's about making the actors feel comfortable on the set.
(OSHA SHUSHING)
We'll be fine, you and me.
The Umbers are great warriors. Even I heard about them growing up.
They'll teach you how to swing a sword.
I know how to swing a sword.
You're leaving now? It's the middle of the night.
I learned to walk in darkness.
Say your good-byes, little man.
Keep this one safe.
He means the world to me.
(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)
We've been waiting a long time.
Haven't we?
It's a big gamble on Dany's part.
She doesn't know,
once Jorah and Daario and Grey Worn
open those gates and her army does storm into the city,
what kind of a fight the city's gonna put up.
Jorah comes back to tell her everything went as she said it would.
They've conquered the city, and Jorah's there to give her the good news,
and he's so happy to be able to tell this queen that he's loved for so long.
What follows, though, is her asking Jorah what happened to Daario.
So many of my favorite moments in the season are non-verbal moments,
and it's just what the actors do.
lain is so wonderfully capable and such a powerful actor
and has so much understanding of who this character is.
It's just this heartbreaking moment, where he realizes he will never be with her.
The city is yours, my queen.
(PLAYING LIVELY MUSIC)
(GUESTS CHATTERING)
The most important part of the feast was this...
"How do I set up the tables and set up the world
"so that I can organize and make the dance moves
"for what's going to eventually happen in this feast?"
Robb Stark and Talisa, you can see Edmure, and Walder Frey is on a little higher level
that he can look down upon everyone and see what's going on and happening.
You don't have to act power
because if you've got a big, big chair, that gives you a head start,
so you just have to sit in it, really.
When I first come in, it's really joyous.
You've got many different houses together celebrating.
It's bright, the music's upbeat and it's a great atmosphere.
CHAPLIN: The goblets are going up,
and everyone's eating with their hands, and there's rude comments being made.
There's a little teasing going on
with Roose Bolton talking to Catelyn concerning his own wife
and how he was given quite a wonderful dowry in marrying this woman.
And so, it's a lot of frivolity and fun going on at the top
that I thought was important to start this all off at.
There are those moments in the show where people are happy.
(LAUGHS) It happens.
When doing a sequence like this, you wanna really hit the highs high
'cause you know how far low and how down it will become.
I hope she makes you very happy.
Well, she's made me very rich.
Pardon, my lord, my lady. I need to find a tree to piss on.
This wedding, because it's Walder Frey,
is going to be a little bit more low-key, much more rustic.
Because it's by a river, all the food's gonna be fish
and cheaper food as well
'cause again, Walder Frey doesn't wanna spend too much money.
And then we've got a great home economist, Karyn,
who's gonna be dealing with all the food.
There's not going to be a lot of glamour at the Frey wedding.
So there'll be more fish and bread, maybe some stews and soups,
and lots and lots of it because we're gonna have to redress, redress,
so it'll all have to go back exactly the same each time.
To avoid having fish lying on a table for the course of a week,
the prop makers have made actual rubber fish.
So we've taken large full-size fish and gutted them, and then molded the bones.
And then on the day, we can dress around the actual rubber bones.
Then they're more pleasant for everybody by the end of the week.
The septon has prayed his prayers,
some words were said,
and Lord Edmure has wrapped my daughter in a cloak.
But they are not yet man and wife.
A sword needs a sheath.
(ALL LAUGHING)
Once you get to the end of the feast, there's the bedding,
which involves both the families coming around to the newlyweds
and basically undressing them
and taking them to the bedroom, where they're gonna consummate the marriage.
It's all in good fun,
and you can tell from Edmure's reaction that he's having a good time with it.
That's where the size of the set comes into play
and having all those extras, who were all brilliant
and incredibly enthusiastic and gave their all, all day long.
Roslin seems a little bit less excited about what's going on,
but that's what you'd expect, too.
(LAUGHS) Luckily for me,
I don't think we're seeing the consummation
actually on camera, but we're seeing the liftoff. (CHUCKLES)
WEISS: In the way that David
and Rob McLachlan, the cinematographer, lit the scene,
there's a distinct but subtle change in the way the first part of the scene is lit
from the way the second part of the scene is lit.
MCLACHLAN: What we're gonna do is build up the light level in there
for the wedding party part
a little brighter than you're used to with Game of Thrones.
It might be just a little bit more high-key and happy.
And my goal with that is to get the audience all going, "Aww. Happy ending."
But then we found an organic way to make it darker and creepier.
When all the guests march the wedding couple off for the bedding ceremony,
which is when most of the people leave the room,
I'm gonna have them grab the torches and the candelabras to lead the way,
and that'll take a lot of the light out of the room and leave very little in there.
So we go from this very festive atmosphere to a really horrific one.
It serves as a way into Robb and Talisa talking about their coming child,
a scene that finally shows them dropping their guard and makes us drop our guard.
It's really pretty because, obviously, she knows how much his father meant to him.
She never knew his father and she's only heard about him,
but she certainly knew how important Ned was for Robb.
CHAPLIN: She doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl,
but if it's a boy, she wants to name him Eddard,
and she knows he's gonna be pleased with that.
And he gets really emotional, and then he kisses my face.
WEISS: It felt like it could put across the idea that this was the reward,
and that they'd finally gotten to a place where, for at least a couple of minutes,
things were gonna turn out the way they wanted them to turn out.
We really wanted to emphasize the warmth of the first part of the scene
to make you feel at home, to relax you a bit,
because the shock of what was to come, we knew would be so much more effective
if you didn't see it coming and if you had actually slumped into your chair a little bit
and let yourself enjoy what was going on.
FAIRLEY: Right at the end, one of the Frey boys walks out and closes the door.
Then the next change is the music,
and it starts off with this wonderful cello sound.
As the tune progresses, the resonance within the cavities of the body
are ones of an immense foreboding.
(BAND PLAYING THE RAINS OF CASTAMERE)