A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms brought the firepower to CCXP in São Paulo.
The panel for HBO‘s forthcoming Game of Thrones prequel series kicked off Thursday in Brazil with a live brass band performing the original show’s iconic theme music as cosplayers acted out aspects of the program. The actual event featured Peter Claffey, who stars as the titular Ser Duncan the Tall, aka Dunk, and Dexter Sol Ansell, who portrays Dunk’s squire, Prince Aegon Targaryen, known as Egg. Its six-episode first season is set to premiere Jan. 18 on HBO, and the project has already been renewed for a second season.
When the moderator asked Claffey how Dunk remains such a cool guy on the show, the actor replied, “I don’t know if he’s ‘cool,’ but he’s quite an anxious, nervous but very lovable guy. He just wants to do what’s right.” Claffey added, “It’s a hard thing to do in Westeros, is try to be that chivalrous knight.”
Claffey said that his character learns quite a bit from the youthful Egg. “Dunk has a very black-and-white idea of how to do things,” he said. Claffey explained that Egg’s “intelligence and knowledge” about navigating interpersonal connections proves helpful for Dunk: “It’s quite a symbiotic relationship.”
When it was noted that Dunk is a direct ancestor of Brienne of Tarth, Gwendoline Christie‘s character in Game of Thrones, Claffey said that he was a big fan of the original series and sees a link between his own work and what Christie did with her role. “I loved Gwendoline Christie as Brienne,” Claffey said. “There’s a lot of aspects to Dunk’s character that she shares.”
Claffey explained that the cast loved meeting with author George R.R. Martin, who took the performers out to dinner in New York to celebrate the latest adaptation of his work. “He told Ira Parker, our showrunner and writer: ‘Please don’t mess it up,’” Claffey recalled.
The panel included a video message from Fabien Frankel, who plays Ser Criston Cole on HBO’s House of the Dragon, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, known for his role as Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones. “I just want to say hi, and I want to welcome the new guy and wish him all the best of luck,” Coster-Waldau said in the video. “Just friendly advice: Try to keep all of your limbs intact.”
Claffey, who hadn’t expected the video, appeared thrilled by it. “That is so cool!” the actor said before marveling about Coster-Waldau: “He knows my name.”
Ansell told the crowd that he initially felt it would be a big decision to keep his head shaved as Egg, and indeed, Ansell’s head appeared to have been recently shaved prior to the panel. “That was a lot to handle,” the young actor said about knowing he would need to lose his hair. But it didn’t take him long to embrace the change: “[Ultimately,] I was like, ‘Yeah! Let’s do it.” He added, “Showers are a lot quicker.”
The young star has appreciated his time bonding with Claffey away from the set. “Every weekend, me and Peter, we’d be having Five Guys and having burgers and going to the arcade,” Ansell said. This led Claffey to quip, “I like to unwind on the weekend by kicking Dexter’s ass in Mario Kart.”
Before ending the panel, Claffey revealed that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms would soon be starting to shoot its second season. “On Tuesday, we start filming season two!” he exclaimed to the enthusiastic audience. He didn’t tease much about what he might be filming but noted that he and Ansell would be needing spray tans soon.
Acknowledging that he had in fact seen the first script, Claffey said, “We just need to learn all our lines.”
Martin and Parker co-created the Game of Thrones prequel series. It adapts Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas and is set 90 years ahead of the events of Game of Thrones’ first season.
Finn Bennett, who co-stars as Egg’s older brother, Prince Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen, previously told The Hollywood Reporter that he was convinced his initial audition for the series had gone poorly.
“I thought I had flubbed it,” the Warfare actor said earlier this year. “I thought I had done such a terrible job in the audition, and I called [my agent] as soon as I came out and said, ‘It didn’t go well. It didn’t go my way.’ She phoned the office of the lovely casting director, Lucy Bevan, and they said, ‘No, it went great. It went great.’”
