Daniel Portman, Podrick From ‘Game Of Thrones,’ Says Fans Have Groped Him Without His Consent

Game Of Thrones is so popular that it has created a tribe of superfans, but sometimes fandom can go too far. Daniel Portman, the actor who plays Podrick on the show, told Esquire that he has been groped by older women who seem infatuated with his character. This is likely because the otherwise hapless “Pod” was once shown to be so proficient at lovemaking that a group of prostitutes refused payment when he offered it.

“What can you do? You know? Obviously, tell them not to do it,” the actor said of the groping. “It hasn’t happened for a while. In this day and age, you’d think that people would be able to separate reality from fiction.”

Podrick has gained some colorful nicknames as a result of that scene. There are forums on Reddit dedicated to “Pod The Rod” and as Buzzfeed notes, he has also been called “Pod the Sex God.”

Nicknames are one thing but when a joke transforms into inappropriate touching, that’s a different matter entirely.

“I don’t want to say [being groped] comes with the territory, but, you know, people are crazy about it,” he added. “It’s certainly not cool.”

While he objected to being groped, Portman admitted that the perception that his character was a great lover did give him an ego boost.

“When you tell a 20-year-old actor, who’s sort of stumbled onto this big TV show, that all of a sudden you’re meant to be Casanova… I would be lying if I said that that hadn’t been fun,” he added.

The second episode of season 8 of Game Of Thrones offered a new revelation about Daniel Portman, he can sing. In a pivotal scene that brings together several main and secondary characters, Tyrion asks for a song. His request is met with silence until Podrick starts singing “Jenny Of Oldstones”

As Vox notes, the inclusion of the song at this stage of the series seems to hint at what will happen at the end of the story. In the books that the show is based on, author George R.R. Martin names it “Jenny’s Song” and its lyrics describe Jenny Of Oldstones whose lover, Duncan Targaryen, abdicated the throne because of their relationship. The would-be King Duncan was Daenerys Targaryen’s great-uncle.

Daenerys has spent much of her life on a quest for the iron throne but has (spoiler alert!) recently found that her lover, Jon Snow, is really Aegon Targaryen, the son of her brother Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark. This means that his claim to the throne supersedes hers.

Will she be willing to give up or share her position as monarch for love? Will any of them survive the attack of the White Walkers on Winterfell.

We’ll just have to wait and see. The next episode of Game Of Thrones airs on Sunday, April 28 at 9 p.m. EST on HBO.