Game of Thrones star Joe Dempsie has rubbished claims that the final season of Game of Thrones was rushed by the showrunners.
The actor, who played Gendry on the HBO series, dismissed rumours that David Benioff and DB Weiss had shortened the last season to six episodes in order to end the show sooner and move on to other projects.
Benioff and Weiss were previously in talks to launch a Star Wars feature film trilogy with Disney’s Lucasfilm, which eventually fell through.
Now, Joe has called the idea of them rushing through Game of Thrones to focus their attentions elsewhere as ‘bonkers’.
Speaking to the Independent, Joe said: ‘Working with [Benioff and Weiss] for a number of years, I know the last thing they wanted is for almost a decade of work to be undone by a final season that didn’t hit the mark.’
He added: ‘Also, we’ve all got egos! No one sets out to make something rubbish.’
One of the main criticisms directed at the final season was that the six episodes didn’t allow enough time to provide a satisfying conclusion for one of the most complex and expansive shows of the modern era.
While Benioff and Weiss always had a difficult task on their hands when it came to satisfying viewers of the hugely popular drama, Dempsie did accept that the final season perhaps should have been longer.
‘Watching it back, I think they could have maybe taken a little more time,’ he said.
Joe also revealed he felt ‘uncomfortable’ over Arya and Gendry’s romance in the final series, having watched Arya grow up on the show.
While star Masie was in her 20s when the scenes were filmed, she first appeared on the show when she was 14, and Joe has revealed that the romantic storyline initially didn’t sit well with him during filming.
There’s more Game of Thrones on the way, with spin-off series House Of The Dragon set to arrive in 2021. Set centuries before the original Game Of Thrones series, it focuses on the Targaryen family and will feature Paddy Considine as King Viserys I.
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