SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains spoilers if you are not up to date watching Game of Thrones.
The stars of Game of Thrones were deeply upset about the criticism of the show’s final season, according to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
Disappointed fans created an online petition calling on HBO bosses to reshoot the final six episodes after lashing out at the deaths of pivotal characters and the show’s uninspiring story lines.
Coster-Waldau, whose character Jaime Lannister died in the penultimate episode, admits the criticism took its toll on the cast.
Speaking at a Game of Thrones fan convention, Con of Thrones, in Nashville in the US state of Tennessee over the weekend, he said: “Every season has been intense in terms of the attention and discussion, but it was extraordinarily intense for a final season.”
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“We have this WhatsApp group, the actors, and I saw some people getting a little upset because some of the stuff is vicious, and if you make the mistake of start reading all that s..t… You write to each other and go, ‘F…ing a..holes. This is so not what would happen! They ruined, they butchered George’s world!’ It’s just fun for you, but of course some (castmates) got a little upset.
“There was that kind of weird feeling of, ‘What the hell? We worked so hard…’ I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry (for us), by the way. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying how it was to get through that whole thing.”
He added that at times series creators DB Weiss and and David Benioff felt they were “the most hated people in the world”, adding, “I know how they feel.”