Meet Peter Claffey, aka Ser Duncan on Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Before this, the Irish ex-rugby player had a role in Small Things Like These alongside Cillian Murphy – and, yes, he’s been talking to George RR Martin
If you thought you’d seen the last of Westeros, you were pleasantly wrong. Game of Thrones may have ended in 2019, but George RR Martin, the author of the novel series the beloved show is adapted from, continues to bring fans back into his universe with spin-offs.
This includes HBO’s House of the Dragon (since 2022), a prequel set around 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and more recently, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The latest series, which premiered on HBO on January 18, is based on Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg book series. The new series takes place nearly a century before GOT and follows the adventures of Ser Duncan (Dunk) the Tall and his squire, Egg.
Martin, who seems to have had a fallout with House of the Dragon’s showrunner Ryan Condal, was all praises for the new show, writing in his blog that he’d seen all six episodes. “I loved them. Dunk and Egg have always been favourites of mine, and the actors we found to portray them are just incredible,” he said.
Peter Claffey, who plays the hedge knight Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall, revealed that he had hours-long in-depth conversations with Martin about his character.
Here’s everything to know about the leading man of Martin’s latest series.
He is a former rugby player
Peter Claffey was born in July 1996 in Portumna, County Galway. He was a former rugby player for Ireland before he caught the acting bug. Claffey represented the national team at the U20s and signed a professional contract with Connacht Rugby, but eventually left the game. “I was in the Connacht Academy and did a few warm-up games but I didn’t get the opportunities. There were a lot of good people playing in my position,” he said in an interview with the Irish Independent in 2022.