Aidan Gillen has admitted that he pinched a few items from the Game of Thrones set, before he was eventually gifted the same items on his final day anyway.
The 50-year-old starred as the gruesome Lord Petyr Baelish in the fantasy epic for seven seasons until his throat was slashed by Arya Stark – and rightly so.
Despite hundreds of theories predicting Littlefinger’s return to Game of Thrones for season eight, which actually seemed quite plausible, Aidan confirmed to Metro.co.uk that his villain is definitely dead and buried.
However, he also told us what he managed to grab from the set on his way out, and explained why his final day was ‘quite tense’.
‘It was Halloween and I got presented with one of my mocking bird broaches,’ Aidan recalled. ‘But I’d already stolen one, I had two in my pocket already.’
He added: ‘I took a few other things – the wig rolls. That was it actually.’
and it was overdue (Picture: HBO)
While viewers gladly waved him off in the season seven finale, Aidan’s final scene wasn’t Littlefinger’s last breath.
‘We’d filmed the death scene three months before, but to film that scene was quite strange and we did shot it like it was my last day – I made sure I looked everyone in the eye,’ Aidan teased. ‘I quite liked it, actually.’
He continued: ‘My final scene was following Arya Stark through some corridors, and something about a key or scroll in a drawer. I remember it being like a horror movie, I remember skulking in the shadows – I do that a lot.
‘So Arya was there on my last day. It was mostly crew and Maisie.’
Aidan admitted he was ‘done’ with playing the bad guy, hence why his new role in Project Blue Book couldn’t be farther from the god awful Lord Bealish, which was an ‘intentional’ move.
The Irish-born actor is taking the reins as Dr. Allen Hynek, the real-life scientist hired by the US Air Force to investigate numerous UFO sightings and, hopefully, shut down any suggestion of extra-terrestrial life.
However, it’s not that simple…
Imagine if the X-Files was based on a true story, with some of the cases being every inch as wild as anything investigated by Mulder and Scully and you get Project Blue Book. It’s a ride.
‘I don’t see him so much as a hero but a warm, thoughtful empathetic person,’ explained Aidan. ‘It’s already aired in the states and someone referred to him as a UFO Hunter and that made him sound heroic.
‘Certainly not what I was thinking at the time but I’m sure I’m probably going to be going back to that somewhere in the back of my mind. It was definitely an intentional move to find a character that wasn’t a baddie.’
Project Blue Book airs Wednesdays on SYFY UK while Game of Thrones returns to HBO and Sky Atlantic on April 14, while seasons one to seven are currently available to stream on NOW TV.
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