John Bradley talks about the similarities between himself and Samwell Tarly, and more

Game of Thrones is currently filming for Season 8, and we have been getting a string of cast interviews, between the set updates. The latest one is from John Bradley, who plays the role of Samwell Tarly on the show. He recently gave an interview over at 15 Minutes With You, a website which has fifteen minute interviews with fans of musician Morrissey. Bradley is a huge fan, and he spent some of the 15 minutes discussing Game of Thrones, including how similar he is to his character. Read on!

First off, he spoke about his audition for Game of Thrones, for which he had read out a scene from “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things” where Samwell talks to Jon Snow about his life before Castle Black :

“That was such a lovely scene to audition because there’s so much character in it and it’s the full justification for that character. When he first arrived he was a source of great mystery and frustration and he incurs the wrath of people because he’s arrived at a place that’s very inhospitable and he’s expected to physically fight and physically survive.”

“He’s completely ill equipped for life up there. It’s only when he explains that he’s in an impossible situation because his father hates him so much and has basically told him, ‘Go there or I’ll kill you!’ That’s when you realise what it’s like to be this man; he doesn’t know where to turn, or has any choice in life. He’s displaced.”

He then pointed out similarities between Samwell and his own self :

“Despite growing up in a family that showed me a lot of love, I still had a lot of self doubt. I was always the last person to believe something good about myself, and the first person to believe something bad. People ask me what have I learned as I’ve gone along with playing the character Sam, and it’s not about what I’ve learnt, it’s about what I’ve un-learnt. It’s not about taking things on; it’s about stripping away stuff and finding out who you really are in your core. ”

“That’s just as important as learning sometimes. I make jokes about things to protect myself. I’ll mention my weight before anybody else and I try to be funny all the time because I think that’s a side of myself that is appealing. I push that side of myself forward because I want to distract everybody away from the things that I don’t like. So as soon as you start to analyse yourself like that, you can see that sort of stuff in that character as well.”

We see Sam rise up to take responsibility of Gilly and little Sam when the need arises. Apparently he was handed an interesting metaphor to help him portray the change in Sam :

“When we were filming those scenes with Hannah and me the director said, ‘What you’ve got here is that you’ve got two birds and they’ve got a broken wing each. They can’t fly on their own but together they have a full set.’”

He continued :

“Sometimes you’re just looking for a key to things and if you get imagery like that it can really unlock you, stay with you. These characters are very detailed and from moment to moment you’re in a different place.”

He also spoke about how not everybody likes Sam because him being a not-so-macho man reminds them of their own vulnerabilities.

What do you think about this interview? What are you expecting from Sam in Season 8? Talk to us in the comments, down below!