ESMÉ BIANCO (Ros): I had a woman come up to me at a convention and tell me she’s a sex worker. She said she’d never watched a TV show or film where she felt somebody playing a prostitute had represented her—“You didn’t play Ros as a prostitute, you played this amazing woman, you played a person.” When I have days when I want to quit the industry, I remember that woman.
But some fan encounters were a bit odd, uncomfortable, or, occasionally, frightening.
MARK ADDY (Robert Baratheon): A guy showed me a tattoo of King Robert he had done on his shoulder. It’s a picture of me on his shoulder. I’m all: “That’s there forever! What are you doing?!”
HAFÞÓR BJÖRNSSON (Gregor “the Mountain” Clegane, seasons 4–8): I get a lot of requests by fans asking if I will squeeze their eyes; that’s very popular. Or pick them up over my head. I don’t lift everyone, usually just girls. And sometimes I have had to say no because if I’m going to lift one person, then so many others are going to ask. You have to try to be fair to everyone, you know.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (Jaime Lannister): A fan stayed in Belfast for three months hoping to meet us. She finally did at the hotel bar. So we gave her autographs and pictures. Very sweet girl, but I was just going, “Holy shit, am I the only one disturbed by this?” I asked her why she did it. She said this was on her bucket list. Well, thank God you finally met us so you can go home!
OWEN TEALE (Alliser Thorne): A guy came up to me once when I was with my wife and said, “Would you do me a favor? Would you call me a bastard into my phone?” I said, “Don’t be silly,” and my wife said, “Oh, go on!” I grabbed his phone and said, “You fucking bastard.” He was so excited.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (author, co–executive producer): At Comic-Con we’d do a group signing and there would be ten of us at a table and each one of us would sign the poster. You’d sign it and then slide it down to the next person. At one of these, I was sitting next to Lena Headey and I started to slide the poster to Lena, and the woman whose poster it was said to her, “No! I don’t want you! You’re evil!” Lena just looked stunned.
At another signing, a guy asked if he could cut off a piece of my beard. I said no and resumed signing. The son of a bitch got a pair of scissors and snuck up around behind me and tried to get some of my hair. My assistant at the time, Ty Franck, who is half of the writing team James S. A. Corey, wrestled him and took the scissors away.
CHARLES DANCE (Tywin Lannister): At times, it can get a little intrusive, especially if you’re quietly having a dinner somewhere with a forkful of food in your mouth and someone comes up and just suddenly someone pulls out a phone and clicks. Am I behind a piece of glass? Am I an animal in a zoo?
MAISIE WILLIAMS (Arya Stark): It’s easy to rely on other people and become like, “How do I make coffee?” I look at Lena Headey; I admire her lifestyle. She’s a fantastic actress. She goes to the award shows and does the famous things but still lives a very normal life. I don’t want people to follow me everywhere. I want to live anonymously, and that’s the one thing I miss—being anonymous.
SOPHIE TURNER (Sansa Stark): I had a burning desire to work at Starbucks. The standard nine-to-five routine was really appealing to me. Because acting is so unpredictable, except when working on Thrones. I wanted to keep acting for the rest of my life but maybe with a random Starbucks job thrown in.
EMILIA CLARKE (Daenerys Targaryen): I didn’t feel equipped as a human being to handle the success or the failure of how the show was viewed by people outside of the show, and that ended up having a profound effect on my character. I became so much more invested in her because I couldn’t look anywhere else for a long time. I was always expecting everyone to turn against her, because fame and success and whether your show does well or not, that’s all fickle as fuck. It’s all going to change as the wind blows. People change their minds. And if you measure your self-worth by all that, then you’re screwed. So I just became even more obsessive. Like, “What is Daenerys?”
Just because an actor got recognized, however, it didn’t necessarily mean the fan knew which character they played.
JOE DEMPSIE (Gendry): There’s been numerous occasions where someone would say, “You’re in Game of Thrones, aren’t you?” And I’d be like: “Yeah.” They’re like, “Yeah, you’re the clumsy dude!” [Meaning Podrick, played by Daniel Portman.] “No, but he’s great.”
KIT HARINGTON (Jon Snow): So many times I was told I look like Jon Snow, and then I said I was Jon Snow and then they said: “No, he’s taller.”
CONLETH HILL (Varys): A lot of people think I’m security or a wine waiter. It’s great because when my hair grows back in I’m not recognized, so I don’t get tortured the way some of the better-known actors are.
PILOU ASBÆK: I had a meeting with producers on a very big film. We sat down, and they were so uninterested in all the things I had to say. After twenty minutes they ask, “So what have you done?” And I say, “I’ve done Game of Thrones”—this was before season six was released. And one goes: “No, fuck you, man! I knew it! You’re fucking amazing!” They went from zero to too much interest. “You are a chameleon! Dude, tell me one thing and be honest: How was it to do the scene where you got your dick cut off?” They thought I was Alfie Allen. This was the worst meeting in the history of meetings. I just went, “That was very tough, but I’m a professional and I’m going to keep it as a secret.” I went out of the meeting and called Alfie and went, “If you get this villain role in this movie it’s because of me.”
Saying an iconic line on the show in particular became a double-edged sword. Just ask Rose Leslie, who immortalized Ygritte’s recurring taunt, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
ROSE LESLIE (Ygritte): It’s a lovely thing that fans are so passionate. But those five words are all they want to hear. And I put on an accent on the show, so when I say, “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” in my own voice, you get a furrowed brow, and they’re like, “That doesn’t sound like Ygritte.” Then I have to go into the accent, and it’s a long, boring process for the fan and I’m sure they walk away wishing they hadn’t asked me because it’s such a kerfuffle.
Sophie Turner had a rougher time than most during the show’s first couple of seasons. In Martin’s books, Sansa is initially meant to be a frustrating character, a shallow and immature contrast to her brave and capable sister, Arya. Sansa believed in the tales of noble knights, chivalrous princes, and happily ever after—the fantasy tropes that Martin’s storyline cruelly overthrows.
SOPHIE TURNER: At first it came as a shock because people didn’t like Sansa. I thought I was being personally attacked but knew I wasn’t. A lot of fans would recognize me and go: “I kind of hate you.” I’m all, “Cool, well, you’ve just made this sufficiently awkward.” [And once], me and Maisie were in line and they were all [to me], “You’re my least favorite,” [and then, indicating Williams,] “You’re my favorite.” I couldn’t take it personally because people hated [Sansa] in the book. I suppose if they hated her on-screen, I was kind of doing justice to her.
MAISIE WILLIAMS: People constantly compared us—this character compared to that character—when we’re two completely different girls playing two completely different characters.
The showrunners likewise wrestled with how best to interact with fans. The duo had an encounter when filming the show’s first season that gave them a reason to mistrust outsiders.
DAN WEISS (showrunner): We were in Malta reshooting Dany’s wedding. Some Russian kid comes up and asked if he could come on the set. He was very nice and decent, if maybe a little off. I was like, “Sure.” Nobody gave a shit then. The show didn’t exist. I figured the kid walked all this way out here, he found this place, he cares.
Later, he posted photos online of everything he’d seen plus a blistering critique, saying here is everything we were doing wrong and that we needed to hire him because he was the only one who could make it right. I’ve thought about that kid many times.
Benioff and Weiss later made a vow to stop reading online commentary about the show (or try to, anyway). Being a showrunner requires trusting your instincts to make countless decisions. The duo were increasingly wary of being influenced by a rising tide of voices from fans and the media, who regularly second-guessed their every move.
DAVID BENIOFF (showrunner): You can get lost in this world of online Thrones commentary if you’re not careful, and we both felt a lot saner after we stopped doing that. There might be nine positive comments but if the tenth one is negative, then that’s the one you’ll remember, that’s what sticks in your head. You want to have an argument with that person—“Well, here’s why this happened. . . .” You start having an argument in your mind, and you realize you’re losing your mind. You’re having an internal argument with somebody named DragonQueen42—you’re never going to win that argument.
DAN WEISS: Even the positive stuff. You read five, six, seven of those and you get the feeling people love what you’re doing. It gives you a little pleasure hit each time you click on a comment, and before you know it, you’re like a coke-addicted lab monkey clicking-clicking-clicking. I don’t want to be a coke-addicted lab monkey. It completely confounds the normal creative process. It’s an all-or-nothing thing. Either you’re listening or you’re not listening.
Many cast members likewise decided to minimize reading about themselves online, with an unusually large percentage of the show’s cast opting against having social media accounts at a time when online fan outreach was increasingly common (and even required by some networks and studios).
PETER DINKLAGE (Tyrion Lannister): I’m sort of a private person. The less you know about an actor, the more serious you’ll take them because they will disappear a little bit. Nowadays, there’s so much information about everybody that it’s hard to see the performance when you know what they had for dinner last night. You want to keep some mystery.
For female cast members, the Internet was especially perilous.
EMILIA CLARKE: Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I looked on the Internet [after the first season] and then stopped. You can read lots of lovely things and the one nasty thing forever stays in your mind. You go to bed thinking about the person who thinks that your bum is too big or whatever. Later, I read an actor’s interview who said, “If you ever hear an actor say they don’t google themselves, they’re lying.” I don’t google myself! One minute I’m engaged to James Franco, the next I’m in a love triangle with my best friend and my gay best friend.
ESMÉ BIANCO: I learned my lesson pretty quickly and stopped looking. I think I’ve read pretty much every negative thing that can be said. People can be horrible, and it can be devastating. It can start to affect people’s performances when you’re getting this feedback as you go along. I made a conscious decision that I didn’t need to know what everybody thought, that if I wasn’t doing my job, then the producers would tell me.
Many Game of Thrones insiders said the most intense fan experiences were not online or at any convention but when the production first went to Spain to shoot portions of season five. The production wasn’t prepared for the extraordinary passion of Spanish fans. A local casting call resulted in eighty-six thousand emails and crashed the casting office’s servers. Outside the cast’s Seville hotel, a crowd of hundreds stood vigil, all day and night, hoping for a glimpse of the Thrones cast.
DAVID BENIOFF: We have never worked in a place where the passion for the series ran so high. You couldn’t walk down the street with a cast member, even a minor cast member, without being mobbed—a friendly mob.
JESSICA HENWICK (Nymeria Sand): We were shooting at the Alcázar palace. It’s got a fence going all the way around it, and we had covered it in plastic sheets so that you couldn’t see into the set. I remember looking over the set and seeing this fire that was getting bigger and bigger. I realized people on the street were setting fire to the plastic sheets to make holes so that they could look through them.
LIAM CUNNINGHAM: The fans in Spain broke into the hotel. They had to bring in the police because they were pushing the gates down. You’d come out at five A.M. and there were people out there—four or five hundred people. Peter tried to leave his room and they were running down the fucking corridor.
PETER DINKLAGE: They’re all so sweet on an individual basis. You multiply it by hundreds, it gets a little intimidating. I don’t like crowds, but the love and support is so sweet. When you’re part of something this big, it’s not about us as individuals; the hysteria is about the universe that was created. It’s like when the Beatles used to play, fans didn’t even want to hear the music, it was all about John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I didn’t just compare the Beatles to Game of Thrones, by the way.
LIAM CUNNINGHAM: At one point I ran out of underwear and there was an H&M across the street. Big Steve—our ex-cop [security guard] from Northern Ireland—jumps up and goes, “I’ll come with you.” I said, “You’re not coming with me to buy fucking underwear.” He wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I’m buying underwear and I look up and Steve is holding back a crowd of people trying to get at me.
Harington was especially an object of obsession, with the Spanish crowds screaming “Kit”—which sounded a bit like “Keet,” so his costars began teasingly calling him “Keith.” Coster-Waldau was also a target; the chiseled Dane was stalked by a group of girls wearing Burger King crowns and had to change his hotel.
KEISHA CASTLE-HUGHES (Obara Sand): I went out and was talking to one of them and told them, “Nikolaj’s not staying here.” They all looked at me like I was an insane person and went, “Well, we know he is.” And I went, “Oh, that’s creepy.”
JESSICA HENWICK: They would say, “Slay me, Kingslayer!”
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU: I made the mistake of going to the gym, and it became crazy. People would come up, “We’ve been looking for you for two days!”
Some of Thrones’ biggest fans were famous themselves, and one in particular was given special access to the show. President Barack Obama would hit up HBO chief Richard Plepler for advance copies of Thrones episodes, even top secret season finales. And he got them.
RICHARD PLEPLER (former co-president and CEO of HBO): Obama was a huge fan of the show. One time, I was at a state dinner and I was going through the receiving line and he said: “I need my episodes.” Later, as we were leaving, I heard him call out to me. I was excited; I thought he wanted my thoughts on something. But he said, “And don’t forget: I need those last two episodes.” I said, “I promise you, Mr. President, you will get your episodes.”
Obama’s successor also wanted something from Thrones, though President Donald Trump’s interactions with the company were more combative. Trump repeatedly tweeted memes touting his administration with a font used on the show’s marketing material while making declarations like “Sanctions Are Coming” (referring to Iran). HBO coolly replied with a statement: “We would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes.”
Protecting the show’s assets was an enormous and often impossible task, and Trump was the least of the network’s concerns. As the show’s storylines left behind the published material from Martin’s books, outsiders made increasingly sophisticated efforts to infiltrate the production and post spoilers online. The most damaging leak was in 2015, when the unfinished first four episodes of season five were posted on BitTorrent from DVD screeners that HBO had sent to members of the media. The leaker was not a critic (“The screeners were sent to someone who no longer worked at a place and they were left on a desk and somebody took them off the desk,” Benioff explained), but the leak marked the beginning of the end of physical copies of media being distributed before a show’s release—not just at HBO, but at studios worldwide.
DAVID BENIOFF: That was a huge deal. It was four episodes. You think of all the hours of work from all the people who work on the show and the millions of dollars it cost. Having these half-made episodes air long before they were supp
osed to was really disappointing. We didn’t have harsh words for HBO so much as we asked, “How do we try to prevent this from happening again?”
MICHAEL LOMBARDO (former HBO programming president): It’s one of those moments where the good news was that we had a show people were desperate to steal. The bad news is we were now in a different world. Everyone realized at that moment—not just with Game of Thrones—that things had changed. It required a whole rethink. The number of people that were allowed access to content changed dramatically at that point.
Then there was the extraordinary drama of the Great HBO Hack of 2017, which played out like something from a high-tech thriller. A hacker social-engineered access to one HBO employee’s email account and managed to download a claimed 1.5 terabytes of stolen data. The infiltrator, who called himself “Little Finger,” threatened to leak the company’s assets if he wasn’t sent $6 million in Bitcoin.
“The greatest leak of cyber space era is happening,” wrote the hacker in emails sent to the media. “What’s its name? Oh I forget to tell. It’s HBO and Game of Thrones . . . !!!”
HBO enlisted the FBI while the network’s internal security team scrambled to figure out what material had been compromised. Luckily for Thrones, the hacker did not obtain actual episodes but had to settle for some scripts along with episodes of other titles, such as Ballers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Room 104.
In 2019, the FBI charged former Iranian military contractor Behzad Mesri with the cyberattack. US Attorney Joon Kim announced to reporters: “Winter has come for Behzad Mesri.” It was never clear if HBO paid any of the ransom, but for a tense period of time at the network, nobody knew if their private communications might have been compromised and what assets might suddenly spring up online.
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