About that episode, it’s TV, movie magic. You can understand the passion around it. In theory, no one’s really getting hurt, but it looked like hell to go through to shoot all of that in the mud for days on end. What was the toughest part about it? Was it doing the stunts, or was it just all encompassing?
How gritty and brutal it looks was not very far off how it felt, and how it was to shoot it, because where we were shooting that in Glenarm, we’d been there for months at that point, and it was the weather, there was a wasp infestation, there were all these different things. So, it got really brutal towards the end. Everything, apart from some closeups that we shot in the end, everything until my helmet comes off was my stuntman, Gyula [Toth], because I had practiced to do everything, but we were shooting and were tied for time and shooting stuff in the studio at that point. So, the stunt guys really had to step up and do stuff. And my God, did they do such an amazing, amazing job. Gyula has been with me this time around as well in season two, and he’s just a brilliant, brilliant, lovely, lovely guy. And the three days that I shot out there doing the stunts, at the end of each day, especially when Finn [Bennett] was out there as well, and the two of us after were like, “How have Gyula and Zach and all the stunt team been doing this for this long?” It was reminding me of like really, really rough rugby matches. At the end of it, just being so, so exhausted and battered. And like when it’s that kind of combat and trying to do justice, that gritty medieval combat, there’s no getting away from the fact that you are going to get a couple of bruises and going to get a couple of cuts. And you’re coming out of those days looking in the mirror and being like, “I did get pretty beat up today.” Which is kind of a cool feeling, but yeah, it was taxing. It was a lot.
But also, a rugby match is like, what, 90 minutes, two hours?
80.
80 minutes.
Yeah.
O.K. And this was like…
This is all day long.
All day long! When you got the scripts, you knew the story. You’d read the book, but the scripts are obviously different. They’re more detailed, there’s more dialogue. Was there any scene, any sequence in particular, that you were most concerned with from an acting perspective?
I think when you start to find out who the cast is, you start to get nervous about scenes because there are a lot of actors in this show that I really, really loved their work beforehand. And I was quite star-struck meeting them. It was one of the relatively early days on set that got to that scene in episode one where he comes in to join the lists with Plummer, played by Tom Vaughan-Lawler, who’s a hero of mine. And you get really nervous before those things because you obviously want to do a good job, but you also want these people to think that you’re genuinely able to act and stuff as well. I think the speech on the horse is like a massive thing because that was a big part of the audition process. So, to get to that point, that was quite looming over for like a couple of weeks in advance. I was like, “It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming.” I want to really do that justice because it’s kept calling it the “Braveheart” speech because of the horseback and having to sort of deliver that thing, and really do it justice. That was quite nerve-wracking. But, other than that, people often ask about the pooping scene in episode one and stuff like that. And they’re like, “Are you nervous about that? ” And it’s like, “That’s stuff I love doing.” [Laughs.] I find that really funny. It’s the real big sort of dramatic sequences that are nerve-wracking for sure.
In the final episode, when Dunk is talking to a vision of Ser Arlan, that’s such an emotional scene. Was that something you focused on?
Yeah, Sarah Adina Smith was directing that episode as well. I think that might have been my first day with her because she came in really quickly to do that, and then we didn’t start doing the rest of the second block stuff for a long time after that. So yeah, the beauty about that [scene] is that it was my favorite set. That was my favorite location up in the Mourne Mountains near Newcastle in Northern Ireland. And it’s quite easy to get into character and get into sort of a scene when you’re in that. How beautiful a landscape it is. And also acting or working with Danny Webb as well, the Pledser Ireland, it’s just a privilege and a joy, and he’s so f**king good that he kind of invites you onto his level with scenes and stuff. It’s very easy to connect and sort of get to that level of his, because he’s such a generous and helpful actor and gives you so much to work with.
How would you describe the second season compared to the first? Does it feel just like the first chapter? Or does it swing in a different direction?
It’s totally different. “The Sworn Sword” is my favorite novella of the three in the “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” book. It’s a tragic love story. It’s a completely different job for Dunk to navigate. And I suppose he has his first kind of experience with…his first kind of experience with kind of trying to navigate talking and chatting to women, which he’s terrible at, and trying to establish a work relationship with a woman, which he’s absolutely awful at. So yeah, it’s been so much fun to shoot and, so far, everybody that’s come on has been just amazing. I didn’t think we’d be able to ever hit the level of quality of season one, but the people that have come in, I mean, people have been confirmed now, as well as Lucy Boyton and Babou Ceesay. And yeah, just people have come in and just been incredible, incredible.
You’ve worked steadily in the UK and Ireland but you’re now globally on another level because of this show. I know you’re in the middle of shooting season two, but are you getting opportunities for when the show ends that you’re excited about? Or are you just looking forward to a break?
Look, if the opportunity … I’m not trying to push for anything at all at the minute. I really want to just get these, however many of these stories that we do. I just want to do them justice and focus on them. But it is an incredibly privileged opportunity, and I’m so lucky to be able to be in the conversation for different things and stuff like that, but I haven’t really tried to go out and do those things and just focus on doing my job first.
One last question for you. You’ve now seen Dexter grow up over the past year. What do you enjoy the most about working with him, and what have you seen the most change in him as a kid, as an actor, over the past two seasons?
I mean, when I was nine years old, and some of the things like this, and press stuff, events when there are hundreds of people in the room and talking, he’s up front and center, like, I find it baffling how he can do stuff like that at the age he is. I was still probably rolling around in my own s**t, eating grass, and being an idiot. [Laughs.] But yeah, I didn’t think he could get any more mature, and the level of increased maturity since we broke and came back to do season two was phenomenal. And some of the stuff that he’s had to do and scenes that he’s had to film, especially stunt-wise and stuff in this second season, is incredible, and he’s just smashed it. We have a little bit of a break at the moment, and I’m going over to do some horse riding rehearsal things on Monday over in London and spending the weekend over at his and his family’s house, and I can’t wait.
Amazing.
We are going to go to the cinema, go to the arcade, and yeah, he’s buzzing. He can’t wait to show me all around his hometown and stuff.
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is available on HBO Max
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