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During the eight seasons spent playing Jon Snow on Game of Thrones Kit Harington approached many of his colleagues. But one of his closest friends and collaborators was a relative came: Miguel Sapochnik, former TV director (19459004) House of True Detective ), who appeared during the season five and has the most elaborate episodes of the series, including "Hardhome" and "Battle of the Bastards" of Season 5.
I recently sat in New York with Harington for a joint conversation between he and Sapochnik, who called Albuquerque. , New Mexico, where he directed Bios a post-apocalyptic feature film starring Tom Hanks. After jokes and rumors without spoiler on season eight, they were able to talk about their first meeting.
Sapochnik: Kit, I was going to ask you something. The first time you and I met, you got off a bus and I came in and introduced myself. I said "Hi" and we were going to do "Hardhome". We then began a conversation about what we wanted to prefigure [in that episode] about what would happen later in history. And in the middle of the conversation, I realized that I did not know if you knew you were still going to die. I could see something on your face and I did not know if you had recorded it or not. So I suddenly thought, "Miguel, shut up now bading. You should not continue this conversation. I remember that for me, it was like, "Oh, great, I just put foot in it.
Harrington: I do not do it. You did not think If I remember correctly, I had read the episode where I died, but I had not been told yet that I would come back. I was so about to go: "This man I just met does he know more than me?". So it's probably the look of research that I had in my eyes. [ Laughter .]
I felt that you needed you at a time of Thrones while Trrones really needed you. to a point where it had really succeeded, and the temptation – I felt it in me – was to sit a little on your laurels. "I know the character. I know what I'm doing. This model works. I know how Jon would react to anyone at this point. And what Miguel did was that he came in and, with each actor, he tested it [complacency] and said, "Well, why? "He pushed us to re-examine our characters, at a time when Thrones could, and I think many series do, sink into stagnation. So Miguel came with new blood but also a way of directing that, I think, invigorated the whole thing.
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Sapochnik: This is kind enough from you, sir. For a long time, I think television has had a lot of directors who go from one job to another, and they throw it in the trash. not having the opportunity to get to know the actors.For me, what was very important when I was doing my first season on Thrones – for each season, in fact, was starting to know the actors , putting them at ease, trying to track their journeys with them, so that the episodes that I actually experienced resemble continuations, rather than mere standals.
Harington: [] "Hardhome" was the first time I worked with Miguel [aside from one scene in an earlier episode, “The Gift”] but I remember thinking you were my kind of guy when I saw you playing Wun Wun, the giant [a CGI character] and go down the hill. The cameras were spinning and you literally had that big stick running down, yelling at the background artists [extras] saying, "Follow this. Look like this. And you were really in it. Rather than calling on one of the VFX guys, you were there, which, in my opinion, was an investment I could invest.
Sapochnik: Season 5 was the hardest for me, mentally, as it was my first year working there. David and Dan [David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the show runners] did not trust me. Nobody knew me. I had just arrived and I was dropped the ball in Hardhome. It was a case of having to prove to them that I could do it, but I had never done anything so big and so big. I knew I had to take a perspective on the story, and that's naturally Jon Snow's perspective. But having neither worked with nor had the opportunity to choose the actor with whom I was going to work, I was very worried. Because what I asked was that you have to act and fight at the same time, which, in my opinion, is not easy. But working with Kit, it was the first time I worked with someone who could act and who could also fight, who could do the choreography but who could always look for the moments between words and action. to have an emotional response – and who was interested in that. And it was a joy.
ESQUIRE: Can you tell me about a specific plan or sequence that speaks to it?
Harington: The sequence that always stands out me in "Hardhome" was a follow-up plan where Jon had to fetch the dragonglbad and he had to run on the ground, so to speak, to the hut where he finds a White Walker. And it was just this one take a long time. It's one of my favorite shots in Thrones in which I participate, in fact. This is the following: "Well, we need to run but not to move too fast ", which is actually very difficult. Because Sean [Savage, a camera operator] must keep me in camera, so it's this kind of strange thing simulated. You must find moments of stumbling, or things that slow you down, or things to watch, to make sure you do not move too far. And it's difficult, because in fact, you'd be doing the sprint! You would run as fast as possible! But what you do is that you switch to a mode like, "No, he can not run because he can be killed by anything, so he has to do some running / walking / run. "It's a bit of a trick, trying to move slowly, seeming to go fast.
Sapochnik: One of the things we've talked about a lot in "Hardhome" and what we've done as "bastards" is: who is the story? What is Jon's story in there? We tried to summarize it in a very simple thing, and it was not just me. It was me and Kit who were talking about it and trying to understand, so always have something to grasp. And so in "Hardhome", it was Jon who was going to Hardhome to save the Wildlings and failed. It was the concept of failure. That's what we always came back to. And then, when we got to the "Battle of the Bastards", I remember meeting you for the first time that season and you were in the tent repeating stunts. We sat and talked. One of the things that came up during our conversation was that you felt a certain amount of strange discombobulation. You did not know what you were supposed to do this season. Like, what was Jon's bow? What was the story? You knew you were coming back from the dead and we were trying to make sense of it. We decided that one of the things to do was to rely on the idea that Jon simply does not know why he is still alive and that we would make Battle of the Bastards his moment of rebirth. And it was felt that by entering only in this simple conversation, it created an anchor point not only for the episode, but for the season. It sounded like most of our ideas while we were spinning in a spiral fashion.
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Harington: I remember having this conversation with you, and I remember feeling, on a personal level, an underlying level of depression. , like: "What is the purpose? "And strangely enough, what Jon wanted to do was parallel, he had gone to the other side [of death] and there was nothing there, all he thought he was fighting for was like, "Well, what's the purpose?" In Battle of the Bastards, it's where he's on the ground and he's trampled [after his army has been surrounded and appears to be doomed] and he can just lie down and die. can simply leave.
Sapochnik: Because we realized that there was almost no dialogue during the whole battle, we were constantly looking for places to play this idea: Jon being dead inside, what was the goal, and then, where would this moment of rebirth be? we shot the scene where he gets trampled, there's this really awesome little moment, the performance -If it's trampled, trampled, trampled, and it's all the way down. "I said to Kit," At some point, just give up. Let's go and let this spark go back.
And it's great, because he's dying. You see it on camera. And suddenly, his eyes open and you see the spark. I think it's because we put a little light on you. All the stuntmen were on top of you and they were blocking any light from pbading through, and then we fixed the problem to create a small gap so that the light hit you. In the photo, it hits your face and your eyes open again and suddenly you start to struggle. These, for me, are the most satisfying things because in the middle of all the action and all the crazy stuff, you get a character.
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I read that this moment was something you had imagined on the spot, that the battle as scripted had reached its climax. What was the original intention?
Saopchnik: I will say that I am not 100% sure, but if I remember correctly, what happened in the scenario with which we went into production was Jon's making his way up to the top, where he has this moment "everything is lost." He's watching the damage.He stands on the pile, seeing everyone get done [by the opposing army] What he does not do is see one of the Karstarks [a soldier from a family aligned with the villainous Ramsay Bolton] on horseback, seeing him on the side where Ramsay is, and hitting him there on his way to go up the body stack and put Jon with a spear, so Jon stands there, seeing that all his men are dying behind him is the Karstark. And then, at the very last minute, the pile explodes right next to Jon and Wun Wun arrives and hits the horse as the Karstark rides by saving Jon. It was the turning point, if I remember correctly. Everything is lost, but Wun Wun saves the day. And then I think Ghost [Jon’s direwolf] comes up with a lot of wolves or something.
Harington: Ghosts are always cut off.
Sapochnik: We stood there [on the battlefield location] and it was the end of the day and I knew we were not going to get there. Even the simplest thing, like shooting with Wun Wun, is always complicated because it's not there. It's just me with a pole. And then, a horse that climbs on a pile of bodies is almost impossible to achieve, because the horses have their own personality and they say to themselves, "I do not ride that." I knew we were about to leave the course, and I think I'm preemptive and dealing with these things. And I told myself that there had to be something less based on visual effects, more real, that can still give us that moment "everything is lost". Because it was really the key to what we were going to do. And it was you, Kit or me, that convergence of ideas. If I remember correctly, what we said was, "What is the worst thing that can happen now?" And the answer we found is that he is trampled to death by his own men trying to # 39; escape. And that's how we got to that. And the next day, as we start turning, you said, "As you know, my biggest fear is to be trampled to death."
Harington: In particular, Northern Irish Men [i.e., the nationality of most of the stuntmen] But we discussed what scared me the most.And it turns out that one of my biggest fears is to be crushed to death as Hillsborough Hillsborough is a football tragedy that took place in the UK and where everyone has just been crushed. [At a 1989 match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium, in Sheffield, an overflow of Liverpool fans into a fenced off stadium “pens” caused 96 deaths and more than 700 injuries.] That's the sort of thing, when you exploit the real fears of actors, things that really make them feel uncomfortable, you can get a scene that really works on a much deeper level for the public.
Sapochnik: Without looking too much sentimental, that is what, for me, testifies to what I loved so much about working with Kit.We all knew the Both of them had something to give. But instead of worrying about our times and the fact that it was raining, instead of turning it into an unstoppable force, meeting an immutable moment of object, we took half an hour just to sit and find something that seemed true to the character. That's what I feel I've worked very hard, every season is to ensure that the character does not serve the plot, but the plot informs. If we succeed each time, it seems to be the best part of our story.
Harington: Dan Weiss admitted to me that writing battle sequences was for them the most difficult thing. They love to write scenes between characters, but in combat sequences, they have to entrust it with a lot of confidence to the director, the actors and the team. I think that's where Miguel was brilliant. On paper, these battle sequences can be quite difficult to read. It's in their action that you understood, and David and Dan were great to allow us to change all these elements. I think that's what made them big in the end.
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The climax you created for Battle of the Bastards is powerful and satisfying, but I can imagine that the alternative version, with Wun Wun shining through a bunch of bodies and hitting a horse in the mouth Would have been a real treat for the crowd.
Sapochnik: In all honesty, David and Dan did not want to drop the punch, so we stuck it somewhere else. It was like a thing. [A budget-minded producer] did not stop coming to tell me, "I can not afford to hit the horse, can not we just do it?" "And Da We were like Dan:" We have to hit a horse! We must hit a horse! "And it was almost as if the discussion was about hitting the horse rather than anything else.
Harington: I remember the first season they had a line they had put where it was written: "The wind was so strong that it blew up a horse. a cliff. "It was like, what's with them and the bading horses? This line was cut off, by the way, because it was bading ridiculous.
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