‘Game Of Thrones’ Recap: Kit Harington Talks About Best Battle Scene Ever


Here’s the Game of Thrones recap for last night’s episode — titled “The Pointy End” — and Kit Harington is giving us some behind-the-scenes details about how the best sequence in the show’s history was filmed.

On Sunday night, fans were surprised when they witnessed the Hardhome battle and now it’s being praised as one of the best set sequences ever in Game of Thrones. Recapping what happened (and in case you haven’t seen it yet, we warn you there may be some spoilers).

In the scene, Jon Snow and Tormund arrive at the remote outpost of Hardhome, as Snow hopes to unite the Wildlings and the Night’s Watch in order to defend the realm from the White Walkers. While there, they intend to meet with Wildling chieftain Karsi (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). However, as they try to convince the remaining tribes to return with them to Castle Black, a battle develops and quickly gets out of control.

The series star, Kit Harington, sat down with Entertainment Weekly to talk about what went and how the epic battle was brought to life.

“It was three to four weeks of shooting for a sequence that should add up to (more than) 20 minutes. We shot less than a minute a day! It’s so CGI-heavy it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done on Thrones. I’ve always been proud of the way Thrones doesn’t go overboard with special effects, but in this sequence they had to. I think it’s going to be spectacular.”

For Harington, this particular scene in Game of Thrones was even harder than The Battle of Castle Black, in Episode 9 of last year’s series.

“Every fight I would shoot three times. First against a man in a (greenscreen-projectable suit), the second with man who’s not in a green suit, but has full-on makeup to look like a dead person, and the third time I would just fight (without an opponent, striking open air). It gave them the option of using whichever way looked the best… It was exhausting.”

Game of Thrones producers used 400 extras and about 50 stuntmen for the Episode 8 scene, but it really helped to have a bigger budget than in previous seasons to shoot such an epic fight scene, according to Harington. As a recap, the actor says in order to keep audiences coming back, HBO has to make these sequences bigger and better.

“If this was a classic narrative, then this is the point in Game of Thrones where everything is at its darkest, where nothing seems like it can go right and all is lost—that’s the point where we’re at with Episode 8.”

What do you think of how Episode 8 of Game of Thrones developed?

[Image via HBO]

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