A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ cast as well as showrunner Ira Parker sat down with us Thursday afternoon at New York Comic Con to discuss the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series.
“We are the unpolished, pre-version of Westeros. We’re not raised in a castle in these beautiful, pristine halls. You know, we’re down in the dirt. We’re sleeping under trees. And everything that comes along with that,” Parker said.
“We’re smaller, but there’s a — It’s allowed us to be almost stranger than fiction in a lot of ways. I’ve been using that a little bit because to me that means you get the oddities and eccentricities of the idiosyncrasies of everyone’s own life, the characters’ own life. You almost can’t put that on a screen when you’re telling a big, broad story.”
Unlike Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is grounded in the point of view of a single character, Peter Claffey’s Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall. And along for the ride is his squire “Egg,” portrayed by young and precocious Dexter Sol Ansell. Ansell, 11, was just 9 when they shot season one.
“What was really important, I think, was, especially with Dunk and Egg, was building up their relationship as strong as possible as we can in the first half. In the second half, when the dynamic changes we have ourselves a good solid base of what that relationship is like. Just giving them a chance to hang out becomes — There’s a mentor/mentee, knight/squire, father/son but also just brothers, you know? And friends to a certain extent. And so the more conversations around nothing that you have, the easier that becomes,” Parker said.
Photo: Steffan Hill/HBO
“It’s a symbiosis of knowledge and navigation through this world,” Peter Claffey said. “And I think especially in the first couple of episodes it shines through even more when they’re not fully sure who either of each other are, which is sort of beautiful. And the fact that it maintains like that is just, it’s a really lovely relationship to play on screen.”
“Because they’re so different people you wouldn’t think they would get along,” his young co-star added. “But when they’re together, Egg learns so many different things from Duncan and Duncan learns so many different things from Egg — it kind of like, works.”
The two spent a lot of their off hours together. “We just, we worked through our lines together, played a lot of chess actually,” Claffey said of Ansell. And I beat him the first time, and then he beat me every single time.”
For Ira Parker, Ansell was his favorite choice to portray Egg from the start. “Your casting director sends you these big reams of all of these auditions, everybody, just thousands and thousands,” Parker said. “Cast package number 1, number 1 on the thing, Dexter Sol Ansell. Clicked on it. Watched the audition and like perfect! Great! So that was easy. And I remember saying to the casting director, ok, so what do we do? Do we just sign him up?” They would look at many more auditions but Parker’s initial instinct ultimately won out. “To come all the way back to him and he was very number 1, it just felt like it had to happen.”
Peter Claffey (Duncan “Dunk” the Tall)
Finding their Dunk was trickier. “Peter had done some really wonderful work on a Sharon Horgan show and not much else that I could see,” Parker said. Claffey had just come from being a professional rugby player. But the casting director described Claffey’s progress every round of the auditions. “He said every single time I see him he’s just exponentially better than the last time. And that’s sort of what you’re betting on to a certain extent. We’re searching for people who are unknowns. You just want someone who is going to grow as quickly as you need them to grow. And that’s true. We brought Peter in three, four, five times by the end. And every single time it just became so clear to all of us that he was our Dunk.”
“And when we saw the two of them together for the final chemistry read it just, I mean I was sitting there with our director, Owen Harris. And we both looked at each either like, this is the show. Easy. It was the least stressful casting decision we ever had to make,” Parker said.
“I was in the office and there were so many different Dunks,” Ansell said. “But Peter was my favorite, and I really wanted him to get the job. When I heard I got the job it was amazing and the whole thing. And then I really wanted Peter to get the job. I was like, if Peter doesn’t get it I’ll be annoyed. But then I heard he got the job, and I was like, YES! Because I knew he was the best.”
“He’s got this control of his charisma and stuff,” Claffey said of Ansell’s precociousness. “And I feel like just Dexter was always Egg; I’m just trying to find the right Dunk. You can feel that when you start reading the scenes together. There’s a regal-ness about Dexter and brains but also a kind of carefree, childlike innocence. It’s been just perfect. It’s been an honor working with him.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on January 18th on HBO Max.
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