15 Crazy Facts about Game of Thrones:
1. Daenerys Targaryen and Catelyn Stark were played by different actors in the original pilot. The original pilot that was never aired had Jennifer Ehle playing Catelyn Stark and Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys Targaryen who were replaced in the show by Michelle Fairley and Emilia Clarke respectively.
2. Charlie Chaplin’s Granddaughter Oona Chaplin plays Talisa Maegyr in Game of Thrones. The actress who plays a short role as Rob Stark’s wife has an amazing family tree with Charlie Chaplin as her grandfather.
3. The original pilot that was never aired due to being extremely flawed has a cameo of none other than the brilliant mind behind the show George R.R. Martin. The author was part of Daenerys and Khal Drogo’s wedding.
4. During the psychotic reign of Joffery, a scene is shot where he makes Sansa stare at her father’s head on a spike. The shot shows a number of heads mounted on spikes among which one is a severed head of George W. Bush. “It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around”, explained the show runners. But it gets people wondering what the production house was doing with a George W. Bush head lying around. The scene was eventually removed from any future DVD production as many took offense.
5. The Iron throne that is made up of a number of swords also features the legendary ‘Glamdring’ sword that belonged to Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings saga.
6. The role of Tyrion Lannister had no auditions conducted, George R. R Martin and the producers of the show decided that Peter Dinklage was best suited for the role.
7. In Season one of GoT Daenerys Targaryen is seeing eating a stallion’s heart. For the scene, the heart was a gummy bear filled with a sugary syrup that Emilia Clarke consumed. Not only did the actress admit it tasted horrible but also resulted in her getting stuck to a toilet. Immediately after the scene, the actress took a bathroom break and the sugary syrup was sticky and got her stuck to the toilet.
8. The Dothraki Language is made up and is a mixture of Mongolian, Arabic, and American Indian. It was developed by David J. Peterson, a linguist for the show. David used words and phrases from the book and comprises of 3163 words.
9. Singer-songwriter Lily Allen was asked to be a part of the dramatic TV series for the character of Yara Greyjoy. Theon Greyjoy is played by Alfie Allen who is Lily Allen’s younger brother. Lily’s reason for rejected the role was ‘too much incest.’
10. Actress Amanda Peet who is married to GoT’s Co-show runner David Benioff threatened to divorce him if Jon Snow was killed in the series.
11. George R.R. Martin trusted the two show runners with the ending of the books which will also be the ending of the show. “We went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with Martin and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character,” Benioff told Vanity Fair.
12. We all remember the amazing fight between The Mountain and The Viper and according to Time Magazine if the fight happened for real The Mountain would have easily been able to crush The Viper’s skull the way he did in the episode. The Moutain played by Iceland’s Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is the third strongest man in the world.
13. Natalie Dormer who played Margaery Tyrell would only read the scripts that were pertaining to her. The actress explained on Jimmy Kimmel, “I watched Season 1 like a fan, like you. So, when I joined them in the second season, I wanted to go back to feeling like a fan. I stopped reading other people’s storylines. I only read the scripts that are relevant to Margaery and Highgarden and King’s Landing. So, when the show airs, I’m sitting on the couch watching it like you.”
14. Season 5 ended with the horrific death of Jon Snow who was later revived in Season 6 but the actor Kit Harrington was asked to lie to everyone on set about his fate to ensure his revival was not leaked to the crowd. Among the stars, Sophie Turner who plays Sansa Stark believed him and wrote the actor a heart-felt letter expressing how she loved working with him.
15. George R. R. Martin wrote a note after the first episode aired for Jack Gleeson who played Joffrey that read, “Congratulations, everyone hates you!”
