Prince Daeron Targaryen actor Henry Ashton recently gave fans a delightful glimpse into the lighter side of filming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. While the show brings epic jousts and medieval adventure to life, he highlighted how the cast turned long waiting periods into moments of laughter and camaraderie.
Quick read:
• Peter Claffey invented a new game to keep everyone entertained on set
• Henry Ashton admitted being really bad at it
• The cast played UNO to pass time
Credits: Henry Ashton
The reality of long waits on set
Filming large-scale fantasy productions means plenty of downtime between takes. For Ashton and his co-stars, those stretches were spent in a shared tent. Usually as there are a lot of actors, the ones that are not shooting at that moment get a lot of free time to pass.
“There was a lot of waiting around – we had a tent and we’d just play games.”
Peter Claffey’s infuriating mystery game
One highlight (or frustration) came courtesy of Peter Claffey, who plays Ser Duncan the Tall. Henry revealed that Claffey introduced a quirky guessing game that had the cast hooked, and Ashton defeated everytime.
“Peter Claffey had this game where you had to figure out what he was doing. It sounds so boring, it’s so hard to explain… It was infuriating though because I was really bad at it!”
This revelation showcased the playful rivalries that develop among co-stars behind-the-scenes.
When the mystery game proved too maddening, the group fell back on a classic crowd-pleaser game.
“There was some Uno too.”
From the interview, it can be derived that the simple card game became a reliable way to pass time, build team spirit, and keep energy high during the long days on set. The laughter, teasing, and friendly competition in that tent likely contributed to the authentic chemistry viewers got to see in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
The cast members have mentioned in multiple interviews, the close bond that all the actors developed with each other throughout the project. As the series moves into a completely new setting in season 2, fans are surely going to miss the original season 1 characters, who made the series a favourite.
