‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 7: Emilia Clarke Back On Set As ‘Winter’ Filming Resumes [Spoilers]

Warning: This article may contain Game of Thrones Season 7 spoilers.

Over the last few months of 2016, Game of Thrones Season 7 cast and crews spread out over parts of Ireland, Spain and Croatia to film epic sequences for the HBO series’ upcoming — and penultimate — season. After taking a short holiday break, filming has once again resumed in Ireland.

Normally, Game of Thrones doesn’t shoot in January and February, but the show’s creators wanted to take advantage of an authentic Ireland winter to match the “winter is here” theme of the final two seasons, as co-showrunner David Benioff explained to Deadline.

“‘Winter is here,’ and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes anymore. So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.”

While some GoT cast members are attending tonight’s Golden Globes in Los Angeles, Emilia Clarke has ended her year-end celebrations and made her way back to Ireland, as she humorously teased in an Instagram post. In the post, she is sporting her trademark Daenerys wig and writes, “For gods sake Emilia put the holiday champagne DOWN and put that wig back on! [sic]”

Not only is Game of Thrones Season 7 shooting during a different time of year than usual, but the producers have also slowed down the production schedule, taking their time to get the final episodes right. This means that, while Seasons 7 and 8 will be a few episodes shorter than previous seasons, the cast and crew is taking just as long to produce them as they did Seasons 1 through 6.

Actor Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont) talked about the change in a recent interview with RadioTimes.

“There are fifteen more hours left in Thrones as we understand it, but that may change, but that’s as far as we know,” he explained. “I think the scale and size of the set pieces, the world that is being created it’s just getting more and more extraordinary and they feel they need that time to shoot seven hours as opposed to ten.”

What kind of scenes are taking up so much time?

As Inquisitr previously noted, a massive battle sequence was being filmed at a Belfast quarry known as Wolf Hill in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The set involved fake snow, giant green screens to add CGI effects in post-production and enough extras to play 300 wights. Jorah (Glen), Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) and Benjen (Joseph Mawle) were all thought to be a part of the battle.

Inquisitr also reported that another huge Game of Thrones Season 7 battle sequence was filmed in the Spanish city of Malpartida, which is in the provide of Cáceres. Cast and crew filmed for over a month in a desolate field and 450 extras were required to undergo a week of training from British military instructors before taking part in the fight. The sequence is said to be so huge it could rival Battle of the Bastards from Season 6.

Spoilers indicate the fight will feature an ambush started by the Targaryens, led by Daenerys (Clarke) and at least one dragon. A casting call and search for horses also hinted the Dothraki horde will be part of the battle. Rumors say the Lannisters will likely be the army under attack, and observers photographed rickety wagons the Lannisters will supposedly use to transport stolen loot. The battle should occur sometime in Episode 3 or 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7.

What do you think of the latest Game of Thrones Season 7 spoilers? Do you think the final episodes will be worth the wait?

Game of Thrones Season 7 returns to HBO later this year.

[Featured Image via HBO]