SPOILER ALERT: “Game of Thrones” had a fiery finale.
USA TODAY
Richard Madden is thanking the Old Gods and the New that his character Robb Stark was killed off the popular HBO series “Game of Thrones” early.
King Stark was massacred during the infamous Red Wedding alongside pregnant wife Queen Talisa and Lady Catelyn at the end of Season 3, but Madden revealed he wasn’t sad to go.
“I died at the end of Season 3. It was such a hard thing to finish because from first pilot to my death was five years. But five years was a great time to be on the show. It helped me so much with my career and experience. I learned a lot from shooting 30 hours of television,” he told Amy Adams during Variety’s “Actors on Actors” chat.
Madden, 32, added, “I was thankful to leave it.”
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He noted that some “GoT” stars, like Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), have portrayed their characters for over a decade.
“Give these guys some medals, because that is a marathon,” he said.
Madden has fared well since leaving behind Winterfell, earning a Golden Globe for his portrayal of volatile David Budd on BBC’s “Bodyguard.” In fact, he welcomed the change in his new character’s morality.
“I’ve spent 10 years playing different versions of Romeo, from Robb Stark to literally playing Romeo twice onstage,” he said. “‘Bodyguard’ was my first real experience of this moral space that isn’t so clean-cut as good guys and bad guys. I want to delve into that.”
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Madden said playing Budd required him to “bring myself all the way down” to channel the “constant level of anxiety” needed for the character, adding that it got “destructive.”
He continued: “It took me a few months after I finished ‘Bodyguard’ to get myself back.”
More: Is Netflix’s ‘Bodyguard’ the next must-see British import?
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