Spoiler alert - don’t read ahead if you haven’t seen the ninth Game of Thrones episode of the third season!
We have warned you… After “Rains of Castamere”, the episode which hosted the infamous Red Wedding scene from Martin‘s books, Robb Stark actor Richard Madden talked a bit with HBO about the tragic turn of events for his character.
[Michelle Fairley and I] went into that scene with heavy hearts because we really love the show and we love working together especially. The scene was a really hard thing to push through, but the scripts were great and the whole episode was so operatic almost, with how the writers placed little details throughout the sequence of events in the episode.
There’s a moment where we look at each other, and it’s Robb Stark essentially saying goodbye to his mother and giving up. There’s a moment of tragedy and utter relief, actually, because these two characters have fought and fought and fought and it’s finally over. I think Michelle and I really felt that on that day, and so did the crew. It was a really big emotional moment because we’re one big family that’s plowed on through this for years.
After describing the shooting day as “horrific and disturbing”, he mentioned thinking about his father when filming:
He read all the books and after the Red Wedding, he put the book down and didn’t go back to it for a couple of months. I think it was because he ties Robb Stark so closely with me. The journey of that character, the fondness that we all have for each other as a cast and a crew, the character’s point of view in the story; it was really moving and not very nice. There was just the total sense of exhaustion. I left set, went straight to the airport and got on a plane because I didn’t want to be there anymore. I flew home to London. And I cried the whole way.
The season finale, titled “Mhysa”, will air this Sunday on HBO.
