Game Of Thrones author calls new adaptation A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms an ‘amazing job’

NEW YORK – Game Of Thrones executive producer George R.R. Martin does not mince words if he dislikes an adaptation of his work.

But the American writer – whose A Song Of Ice And Fire fantasy book series (1996 to present) inspired the Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019) and House Of The Dragon (2022 to present) television shows – has given the thumbs up to a third spin-off, A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms.

Debuting on HBO Max in January, the show, based on Martin’s Tales Of Dunk And Egg novellas (1998 to 2010), is set 100 years before the events of Game Of Thrones and after the House Of The Dragon timeline.

It follows a wandering knight named Ser Duncan the Tall, also known as Dunk (Peter Claffey), and his young squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) on their adventures through Westeros.

At a recent panel at annual fan convention New York Comic Con, Martin – an executive producer on the series, which he co-created with showrunner Ira Parker – says: “I still feel these stories are some of the best I’ve ever done, and Ira and his team have done an amazing job of adapting them.

“And what you see is going to be very similar to what I wrote.”

Martin, 77, was impressed when he visited the set a year ago in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he watched the filming of a mediaeval-style tournament.

“It was all really cool. There’s nothing like seeing something that existed in my head come to life.”

Martin previously criticised Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for deviating from his books, especially when it came to the characters of Daenerys Targaryen and Sansa Stark, played by English actresses Emilia Clarke and Sophie Turner respectively.

With House Of The Dragon, he questioned the depiction of the dragons and the omission of the Maelor Targaryen character.

But Martin himself is not immune to criticism and occasionally takes it to heart.

A critique of his books inspired him to create the three Dunk And Egg novellas.

“When (the first book) A Game Of Thrones first came out, mostly it got good reviews, but one critic said, ‘Here is another fantasy about kings and lords – nobody ever writes about the common people.’

“And that resonated with me,” Martin says, noting his own working-class background.

Irish actor Claffey says his character, Dunk, is desperate to leave behind his past growing up in the poorest area of King’s Landing.

“He’s trying to be the most respectable knight he can be, and tries to extinguish that side of him,” says the 29-year-old of his first lead role. The former professional rugby player briefly appeared in the historical drama Vikings: Valhalla (2022 to 2024).

“But it serves him to have that fight-tooth-and-nail character, and he gets to sort of accept himself.

“It’s one big violent therapy session,” says Claffey, who, at 2m tall, is almost as imposing as the character, who in the books is described as one inch short of seven feet, or 2.1m tall.

He towers over his 1.3m-tall co-star Ansell, the 11-year-old performer who plays Egg.

But the boy had a blast working with Claffey.

“The most fun part was the tug-of-war scene. No one was listening to the stunt coordinators and we were doing a real game of tug of war.

“I was at the front and if your team lost, you fell in the mud,” says the English child actor, who appeared in the fantasy blockbuster The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023).

“We won eventually, and Peter threw me in the air, caught me, and my eye hit his nose. And that’s the day George R.R. Martin was there.”

“And you had to meet him with a swollen eye,” Claffey recalls.

Parker says A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms has a different tone from the previous shows.

“These novellas are so sweet and have so much hope, but they also have brutal elements of this world in Westeros where anything can happen,” says the American writer-producer, who worked on the post-apocalyptic drama The Last Ship (2014 to 2018).

“And we’ve never had this perspective before of somebody who grew up in the slums of King’s Landing as an orphan, and he’s just trying to make it,” he adds.

“Hopefully that will resonate with a lot of our audience.”