Fourth series of Game of Thrones dishes up surprises for audience and actors
The fourth series of the hit television show dishes up surprises for the audience - and the actors, writes James Mottram
If anything underlined the importance of Game of Thrones it was the recent New York premiere. With Two Swords, the first episode of the fourth season of the HBO fantasy show, unveiled at Manhattan's lavish Lincoln Centre, it arrived with the sort of fanfare usually reserved for a Hollywood blockbuster.
A life-size model dragon stood guard outside, as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra whetted appetites by playing the theme tune. And that was even before 7,000 costumed-wearing fanatics turned up for a special "fans" screening in Brooklyn.
We like to say it's a show that's made by grown-ups for grown-ups
Already, it's turned previously unknown actors into stars. Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, is now the lead in blockbuster movie Pompeii; Emilia Clarke, the dragon-rearing blonde bombshell Daenerys Targaryen, has been cast in Terminator: Genesis as Sarah Connor.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the Danish actor behind the "Kingslayer" Jaime Lannister, is pitching up in a host of Hollywood movies, from Cameron Diaz rom-com The Other Woman to forthcoming Egyptian drama Gods of Egypt. "It certainly doesn't hurt to be on Game of Thrones," he smiles.
Rivalling Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, "It's one of the biggest TV series in the world now," says Irish actor Aidan Gillen, who plays the scheming Littlefinger, one of the myriad characters in Westeros, the fictional medieval-like land at the heart of George R.R. Martin's book series A Song Of Ice And Fire on which the show is based.
