Joe Dempsie is known around the world as Gendry Baratheon from “Game of Thrones,” but he would have been Jon Snow had his first audition for HBO’s fantasy series been successful. In a new interview with Esquire, Dempsie revealed he got rejected by “Thrones” three times for three different roles before reluctantly doing a fourth audition for Gendry and landing the part.

The final season of “Game of Thrones” drew lots of attention, not only for gaffes involving modern drinkware being left on screen, but also for what some fans deemed as poor writing and disappointing resolutions to beloved characters’ storylines.

Instead of kicking off with a bang, the first episode of Game of Thrones season 8 strategically placed the characters exactly where they needed to be as the encroaching Winter drew close. As part of the preparations for battle, “Winterfell” gifted viewers a number of reunions — the most heartening of which saw Jon Snow and Arya meet for the first time since the beginning of the series. Jon was never particularly close with Sansa, who often alienated him due to his status as a bastard. However, when the pair reconvened after several seasons apart, they were ecstatic to see each other.

In the second episode of the final season of Game of Thrones, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” winter has come, and with it, an army the undead. Jon Snow has devised a battle plan to defend Winterfell, and ultimately the realms of men. So what does a U.S. military officer have to say about these best-laid plans? Sadly, Jon Snow could use the help of the evil yet battle-savvy Ramsey Bolton right about now. 

Varys is dead after the penultimate episode of “Game of Thrones,” and actor Conleth Hill isn’t holding back when reflecting on his time on the HBO fantasy series. In an exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor expressed disappointment with the series for sidelining his fan favorite character over the last couple seasons. When asked if there was something he wished Varys got to do on the show, Hill noted his character was robbed of having a last meeting with nemesis Littlefinger in Season 7.

Game of Thrones is sprinting toward its ending, but HBO, George RR Martin and fans all agreed that it should have taken its time with more seasons.

Redditors from the /r/Freefolk subreddit, angry at how Game of Thrones’ final season has played out, briefly succeeded is getting a picture of its showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to rank for the search term “bad writers.” Both Metro and Business Insider were able to verify the success of the campaign, although searching for the same term now returns images from these news articles rather than from the Reddit post itself.

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss discuss the final season of their blockbuster HBO series in a deep-dive, spoiler-free conversation. Below are new behind-the-scenes insights about creating the hugely anticipated final six episodes of the global fantasy hit as the Emmy-winning duo discuss writing the finale, the season’s massive battle episode, author George R.R. Martin’s contribution, fears about spoiler leakage, their favorite scenes, and their rare arguments amid an obsessive drive to create the best possible drama. (Note: A few of these quotes were previously published in EW’s season 8 cover stories.)

I have eagerly awaited the final season of Game of Thrones, and its strange blend of fictive medieval Britain, supernatural monsters, and pornography. Over the seasons the plot has gained speed and focus while the pornography has vanished and—incredible as it seems—we can also detect that George R.R. Martin’s fantastic story has a message. Perhaps we can explain its enormous success by considering how, at a subconscious, dreamlike level, it deals with humanity’s most profound problem.

Sadaf Ahsan: The character of Arya has never followed any traditional tropes — and, for some, this has proven to be awfully confusing

The global demand on the day of Game of Thrones’ 8th season premiere exceeded the global premiere demand of every other TV series – including Game of Thrones’ own global season 7 premiere day demand – for any season across all platforms and markets under measurement. Parrot Analytics, a TV content analytics firm specializing in global audience demand measurement, partnered with Guinness World Records to chart the demand and declare it officially Most in-demand TV premiere.

There were plenty of things to enjoy and lots more to nitpick in this week’s episode of Game Of Thrones, but one thing we can all agree was absolute bullshit was Jon Snow’s half-assed goodbye to his sweet, loyal boy Ghost. Soon after the episode aired, Twitter exploded with people’s reactions to Jon’s unwillingness to pet his damn dog, but now episode director David Nutter has come out of hiding to provide some answers and put all other theories to rest.

The “Game of Thrones” series finale ratings are here and they are — as you’d expect — staggering. Across HBO, HBO Go, and HBO NOW, the conclusion of the megahit fantas…

Game of Thrones series may have ended, but these Game of Thrones quotes from Tyrion, Jon, Ned, Petyr, Aemon and other GOT characters will inspire you forever.

In the span of just a few weeks, we saw two of the most adored franchises of our time reach a concluding chapter. But while Avengers: Endgame was a triumph, Game of Thrones’ final days was dissatisfying. There’s good reason why these two beloved stories came to such utterly different conclusions.

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“Game of Thrones” star Iain Glen has lifted the lid on the efforts of the show’s producers to avoid spoilers and leaks from the eagerly anticipated final season. “They’re absolutely paranoid now about anyone finding out anything about the series and spoiling it,” he said in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast Friday. “We weren’t allowed a written word on a page. Everything was accessed through iPads with different security you had to get through to access it, which caused a problem for the actors, I have to say.

Winter is coming ... even to the insect world. The final season of “Game Of Thrones” won’t premiere until April, but an entomologist in Nebraska is already helping to hype the show. University of Nebraska-Lincoln entomologist Brett Ratcliffe has named three beetles he discovered after dragons from the HBO series: Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

HBO will finally reveal the exact return date for the final season of Game of Thrones. Up until now, the network has only said the show is coming back in April, 2019. But which Sunday in April? The 7th? The 14th? The 21st? Dear god, it’s not the 28th is it? Just tell us it’s not the 28th!

Game of Thrones | Season 8 |

A recent study estimated that half of Game of Thrones's main characters have been killed off over the past seven seasons, which makes it very likely that one of your favorites was among them. Though fans have come to expect death as one of the hallmarks of the epic HBO series, it doesn't make it any easier when it happens. Viewers have invested enough time and emotion into the show that some have even started petitions against killing off certain characters—or bringing them back from the dead.

The great battle is over. The snowy ground is streaked with blood. Beloved heroes lay dead outside the castle gates. Winterfell is quiet. And then… A sudden roar from above. A gust of wind. A blur of low-flying movement. A dragon? No. An ice dragon? Worse. “F—king spoiler helicopter just flew right over the set!” says an alarmed crew member. This could be a disaster. It’s April 2018 on the set of the final season of Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland.

Here are the alleged runtimes of each of the episodes in season 8 of Game of Thrones.

“I’ve never told this story publicly, but now it’s time.”

The perfect snack for your Game of Thrones viewing party.

Few people are happy to see Game of Thrones come to an end, even if millions of viewers around the world are excited to see how the story wraps up. Firmly in the former camp: George R.R. Martin, the award-winning author who first introduced the world to Westeros in 1996's A Game of Thrones, the first book in the ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire odyssey.

“Game of Thrones” opened to massive ratings on Sunday night. According to figures released by HBO, the Season 8 premiere drew 17.4 million viewers across all platforms (linear, HBOGO and HBO NOW), including 11.8 million who watched on the linear channel. And that is only those who watched Sunday night. Expect the total viewers to go up considerably once delayed viewing is factored into the final numbers.

It won't surprise you to hear that Game of Thrones is a pirate magnet, but the sheer scale of that piracy may be reaching new heights. The analytics company MUSO has determined that people pirated the show's season eight premiere just shy of 55 million times in the first 24 hours. About 76.6 percent of those viewers relied on bootleg streams, while the rest were split between downloads (12.2 percent), public torrents (10.8 percent) and private torrents (0.5 percent).

With the rise of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, Hollywood is facing issues of consent, harassment and sexual assault in the workplace head on.

Shiny and sharp, obsidian is enjoying a bit of a pop culture moment. It plays a central role in HBO’s hit fantasy series Game of Thrones, now wrapping its final season. Called dragonglass on the show, obsidian is one of only two substances that can cut down White Walkers, malevolent otherworldly warriors. In the real world, the volcanic glass reveals the human story in a way no other material can.

Forget the War of the Five Kings: The running for whose Game of Thrones spinoff idea will see the light of day is turning out to be just as intriguing. In a new Hollywood Reporter post, series writer and co-executive producer Bryan Cogman says his concept for a Thrones spinoff “is not happening and will not happen. HBO decided to go a different way.”

Game of Thrones is ending, which has to be a little weird for George R.R. Martin, who wrote the still-unfinished novel series on which the show is based. Famously, the show adapted the books for the first five or so seasons but had to keep going when it ran out of book material. With the ending of Game of Thrones just a few weeks away, Martin will watch the ending of his story before he gets a chance to write it.