The ‘terrifying’ message writer George R.R. Martin gave his new star

It’s one way to begin a new TV series: in the opening scenes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new Game of Thrones spin-off, a knight with a sword talks of honour and glory, against a backdrop of rolling hills and stern winds. The famous Game of Thrones der-der-derr-der theme tune begins to swell. And then, if you’ll pardon the phrasing, our noble knight drops his pants and takes a dump behind a tree.

There is another article to be written about graphic defecation on modern television, but suffice to say that this scene sets the tone for AKOTSK.

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“This is the opposite of epic,” says Ira Parker, the series’ showrunner. “We wanted to not have a big epic score like we’re used to with Game of Thrones. We tease that for a moment when Dunk is having this feeling of, ‘I want to go be a hero.’ But he’s not a hero. He’s just a guy ... And when he hears that heroic music in his head it turns his guts to water.”

Dunk, played by Peter Claffey, soon teams up with Egg, played by Dexter Sol Ansell, and they head off to a tournament in a classic odd couple pairing to prove their mettle. We get some backstory on why Dunk, a peasant boy, wants to be a “hedge knight” (hedge knights, in the lore of Westeros, are knights who wander the Seven Kingdoms seeking employment with major lords; they are so-called because they’re so poor that they have to sleep under hedges) and why Egg is posing as a lowly stable boy, but mostly AKOTSK is a self-contained story. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, it’s a bit like a western – a novice gunslinger comes to town to make a name for himself, and it all kicks off.

Peter Claffey (left) and Dexter Sol Ansell star in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.Credit: HBO Max

Parker was a writer for season one of House of the Dragon, the first Game of Thrones spin-off that premiered in 2022, but he got the job on this show off the back of his work on Better Things, the FX domestic comedy created by Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. His elevation to top dog is another signal that AKOTSK is meant to be a very different beast to its grandiose precursors.

“There’s a lot of that show [Better Things] that courses through this,” says Parker. “In its warmth, hopefully, and in its earthiness. [I want it to] feel real and unpolished, like this is the unvarnished truth of life at the ass end of Westeros.”

Parker says that he thinks it’s that sense of normality – in as much as knights on horses at a medieval tournament is normal in 2026 – that makes AKOTSK a show for our times.

“I think people see themselves in these characters, even though they are set in a fantasy setting,” he says. “That’s a lot of fun – to have people that you recognise.”

With Dunk, unlike so many of Game of Thrones anti-heroes and arch villains, you are rooting for him to come out on top.

Fans of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will be rooting for Dunk, played by Claffey, to come out on top.Credit: HBO Max

“Dunk is just such a wonderful, likeable, easy-to-enjoy character,” Parker says. “I want to say I see so much of myself in Dunk, but I think everybody does. That’s what’s going to make him so lovable: the idea of just going out and trying something that is harder than what you’re capable of doing. That’s very familiar to people starting off in their lives. It’s scary, and it takes a certain type of person with a little bit of grit or doggedness. The point is it doesn’t come easy: Dunk is not a hero by nature.”

It’s that homely likeability that gets Dunk in with Tanselle Too-Tall, played by Australia’s Tanzyn Crawford.

“She’s a puppeteer,” Crawford says, “this travelling performer that just happens to be in this little town when everything kicks off.”

Australian actor Tanzyn Crawford plays Tanselle Too-Tall in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.Credit: HBO Max

This meant the actor didn’t have to mug up on all the reams of Thrones lore, not to mention the 100-plus hours of programming that have already constituted Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. Her character wouldn’t know a Targaryen from a Tarly, so why should she?

“She is just normal. She doesn’t know who’s who, who’s a prince, what [a] monarchy is. She’s just moving from place to place and in her own little world. That took the pressure of me to be knowledgeable on everything Thrones because I don’t think she would be. She’s just regular and I love that,” Crawford says.

Still, there is no actor on the planet who is unaware of what the Game of Thrones franchise represents within the industry. AKOTSK is only the second offshoot of what Parker calls “the biggest show ever on television”, and as such it is a very big deal.

‘I was a massive Game of Thrones fan … I’m shitting [myself], to be honest with you.’

“I was nervous – not gonna lie,” Crawford says. “When I came in I was like, ‘Oh gosh this is a lot … of guys’.”

Within a male-heavy cast, Crawford easily holds her own. Her character is central to the story when she becomes involved in a conflict between Dunk and the vicious Aerion (Finn Bennett).

Peter Claffey, meanwhile, is well aware of what he is getting in to.

“I was a massive Game of Thrones fan,” he says. “Towards the end, the original series was a phenomenon. It had people betting on who’s going to win and who’s going to die and watching it together in pubs … it was crazy. So I know how passionate everybody will feel about that. There’s a certain amount of responsibility to try and block that out, but I’m shitting [myself], to be honest with you.”

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Claffey has the advantage that original Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is onside. (Martin was critical of the most recent series of House of the Dragon for veering away from his books.)

“He said to me, ‘This is my favourite of all my stories … so don’t f--- it up’,” Claffey says, “which was quite terrifying. But he’s just a really lovely, lovely guy. And I feel personally that as long as you’re not straying too far from his character profile, as long as you’re doing a good tribute to what he’s written, he wants you to do your thing. He seemed to be super-duper happy with his set visits and everything he saw.”

Martin has blogged about how much he likes AKOTSK already, but in addition to having the author right behind him, Claffey also has 11-year-old Dexter Sol Ansell at his back. Ironically Ansell, who has been acting since he was four, has more experience than Claffey, having appeared in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Robert Zemeckis’ 2024 movie Here, with Tom Hanks.

“Do you remember when we came back from the read-through?” Claffey asks Ansell (they interview as a pair, just as they are on the show). “We were sitting down, it was me, Edward Ashley [who plays Ser Steffon Fossoway], Shaun [Thomas, who plays Steffon’s son and squire] and Henry [Ashton, who plays Prince Daeron Targaryen] and we were having a pint. Dexter was having an apple juice or something. I was saying, ‘I haven’t done a film, I’d love to do a film.’ And Dexter said, ‘I’ve done seven.’”

Dexter Sol Ansell has serious acting credits for an actor so young.Credit: HBO Max

Ansell points out that although he may have multiple big-screen experiences he remains too young to even have watched the original Game of Thrones. He is too young to be interviewed without his dad in the room either, which leads to what sounds like a well-worn conversation: “Daddy, what age am I allowed to watch it?”

They reckon 15, by which point Ansell may be on the other side of AKOTSK and, alongside Claffey, a major star. But then that’s the whole story of the show – start at the bottom and work your way up.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is on HBO Max now.

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