Per Gizmodo, at the press roundtable, Daniel Ings spoke about his portrayal of Ser Lyonel Baratheon. He said, “I was given a lot of freedom by Ira [Parker], our showrunner, and Owen [Harris], our director. […] Ira was super open to that kind of playfulness, and it needed that. He created an environment where I could be confident and be weird, and I just had to sort of trust those guys that they would pull me back in if it went too far.”
The first season of the show is based on George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight. While Ser Lyonel has a big role in the story, he does not meet them until later in the novella. On the other hand, the pilot episode has already given fans a glimpse at his revelling ways.
Daniel Ings praised Ira Parker’s work on Ser Lyonel Baratheon
Ira Parker on HBO’s Official Game of Thrones Podcast (Credit: HBO)
Elsewhere in the interview, Daniel Ings praised how Ira Parker shaped up the Baratheon lord. He said, “Ira had done a huge amount to bring that character that people love from the books and to kind of give life to him and flesh him out and give a sense of the fun and irreverence of that guy on the page.”
Ings also revealed that when he first read the script, he wanted “to play a guy called the Laughing Storm.” He said the brief described the character as a blend of Captain Jack Sparrow and Ernest Hemingway, calling it a “fascinating collision” that instantly piqued his curiosity about how those two influences would come together.
