After the infamous failed edition game of thrones’ Last season, which saw a Starbucks cup left in a scene amid a Winterfell setting, the cast of the upcoming prequel has been asked a rather uncomfortable question about the gaffe.
The stars of the next HBO House of the Dragonwhich premieres on Binge and Foxtel on August 22, appeared together publicly for the first time at Comic-Con in San Diego, California on Saturday local time.
Australian actress Milly Alcock made her debut at the fan event, alongside co-stars Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Paddy Considine, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Steve Toussaint, screenwriter Ryan Condal and GoT author George RR Martin, who hosted a panel discussion at the international event.
Towards the end of the panel hosted by the moderator, the questions opened up on the floor, where one punter went wild with his burning question for the cast.
“Were coffee cups banned on set?” he asked, before receiving a long pause.
Taking one for the team, Smith, 39, replied: “No. They’re everywhere,” before moderator Jason Concepcion quickly moved things along.
Thousands of people in the audience lined up for hours to see the panel House of the Dragonthe long-awaited 10-part follow-up to thrones
HotD chronicles the rise and fall of the Targaryen family, set during an era called the “Dance of the Dragons,” in which a nasty civil war breaks out between the ruling family over the successor to the Iron Throne.
Martin, 73, was in fine form during the panel, where he made a cheeky comment about the lackluster final season of thrones who infamously jumped in front of his unfinished book, The winds of winter.
“Our cast here is amazing, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to meet them during Covid, I haven’t had the chance to visit the set and stay, like I did on another show in the past,” Martin said. said
“But I’ve seen nine out of 10 episodes, and it’s pretty amazing. I’m very, very happy.”
When asked if he would appear in a cameo, Martin said he had spent most of his time at home trying to finish. The winds of winterwhich he initially intended to publish before the program in 2016.
“For the last two years since Covid hit, I’ve barely left my house and you might not know, there’s this book I’m writing, it’s a bit late,” he joked.
“[I’m not committing to anything] until I finish and deliver the book and then, if the show is still on, I might appear.”
He added: “I did a cameo in the original pilot of game of thrones but they reshot most of the pilot, so I stayed on the cutting room floor.
“At one point it was supposed to be a severed head, in that scene where Joffrey [Baratheon] does Sansa [Stark] Look at all the carved heads on the wall, I was going to be one of them, but then they realized how expensive it was to make a carved head.”
Elsewhere, British actress Olivia Cooke, 28, who plays Alicent Hightower, opened up about the immense stress of creating a worthy follow-up to the multi-Emmy Award-winning show, which has been running since 2011 until 2019.
“There’s enormous pressure to give you what you want, to make it different and put our own stamp on it,” he said.
“Hopefully this will have the same legacy. God, we’ve worked our asses off for a year. And these guys [Martin and Condal] worked longer. Yeah man, I hope you like it.”
Although the cast was tight-lipped on a possible second season of the series, Condal let slip that production had been creating dragons that viewers won’t see in the first season.
In what will also excite fans of the franchise, Condal said there were “17 dragons” in the prequel, an extreme jump from thrones which featured Daenerys Targaryen’s trio of ultra-rare dragons.
House of the Dragon premieres express from the US on Binge and Foxtel on August 22
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