Per Deadline, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) is caught in a legal battle with Impression Entertainment Inc. and Jill Littman, who represented him in Hollywood for a good chunk of his career. To make a long story much shorter, Coster-Waldau began his relationship with Littman in 2005 or 2006, years before he got his gig on Game of Thrones. He signed agreements with the parties in 2011 and 2014 (technically the same agreement with updated dates), after he’d gotten the role of Jaime Lannister. In 2015, Coster-Waldau parted ways with Impression and Littman, writing he wanted to “take control myself…So, it has everything to do with me and very little to do with your work which has been absolutely stellar. Looking at what we have achieved these past 10 years surpassed all my hopes.”
Then, in July of 2017, Impression took Coster-Waldau to arbitration, claiming the actor had breached the terms of the 2011 and 2014 agreements and that he owed the company unpaid commission. Finally, late last month, arbitrator Henry J. Silberberg sided with Impression and Littman, and ordered Coster-Waldau to pay “$1,752,564.55 plus pre-judgment interest at 10% per annum.”
You can read Silberberg full decision here, and the Final Arbitration Award here. When calculating what Coster-Waldau owes, his Game of Thrones salary is a big part of it, since these days it nets him quite a lot: $1,066,677 per episode of season 8, per the tribunal’s calculation.
In any case, Coster-Waldau is resisting the order and has filed an appeal in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking a new trial. Howard King, the lawyer for Impression and Littman, couldn’t resist getting a little cheeky with his statement: “Although a Lannister always pays his debts, NCW has declined to honor the final ruling of the arbitrator and pay the compensation found to be due his former manager for all the successes she contributed to during her 8-year reign.”
The arbitration tribunal wasn’t convinced by his argument claiming that the 2011 and 2014 agreements were “sham documents,” but should he get a new trial, the results could be different.
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