The Shooting of “Game of Thrones” Is Over, so What’s Going to Happen in Season 8 and What Are the Actors Doing Now?

The final season of one of the most successful series of all time was shot this summer. Audiences will know the ending in the first half of 2019 when Season 8 will appear on screens everywhere. Meanwhile, the actors and the writers of Game of Thrones leave a lot of hints about what’s going to happen in the final season.

Bright Side collected the most curious facts and theories in order to tide you over in the meantime. At the end of the article, you will find some information about movies and series your favorite actors are starring in now.

What do we know about season 8?

• Shooting started on September 23, 2017, and continued through July 6, 2018. There will be only 6 episodes. You may wonder why it took so long to shoot the season. The duration of each episode will be enlarged and instead of 1 hour, each episode will take up to an hour and a half. Some scenes demanded extraordinary efforts from the film crew — shooting the major battle took 55 nights. For example, it took 25 days to shoot the episode, Battle of the Bastards from season 6 which is 2 times less! Imagine what’s waiting for us now! It is alleged that the final battle will take place in Winterfell.

• HBO programming president, Casey Bloys told the press that the season finale will be definite and there won’t be any clues for a continuation. Bloys also said that the final part of the saga turned out to be fantastic, unbelievable, and all fans will be delighted. Well, we hope so too!

• In order to protect the script from leaking, the creators went to unprecedented measures. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) said that they were allowed to read the script only inside the studio and in electronic form. Additionally, the script was self-destroyed sometime after. Sometimes during a shoot, the actors got their cues directly into their earphones (it seems that this happened during the most important scenes).
• There’s one more curious thing to take note of: a few false endings were shot on purpose. It was made to mislead the pervasive paparazzi. It seems like only the creators of the series know about the finale.

As told by the actors...

Maisie Williams, who played Arya Stark, celebrated the end of shooting by sharing a picture of blood-stained sneakers on her Instagram. She wrote the following: “Goodbye Belfast. Goodbye Arya. Goodbye Game of Thrones. What a joy I’ve had. Here’s to the adventures to come”. Many people started looking for some hidden message in the hashtag #lastwomanstanding. Does it mean that Arya will be the only woman who’ll survive the finale or does it mean that the actress is tired?

Emilia Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen, wrote the following lines on her Instagram page: “Hopped on a boat to an island to say goodbye to the land that has been my home away from home for almost a decade. It’s been a trip @gameofthrones thank you for the life I never dreamed I’d be able to live and the family I’ll never stop missing.”

During one of her interviews, Emilia said that it was very difficult to finish shooting the series. The actress also explained that the finale would be very unexpected and it would be shocking for the audience to find out who Daenerys really was. So intriguing!

In order to commemorate the ending of the shooting, Sophie Turner (who played Sansa Stark) got a direwolf head tattoo with the writing, “The pack survives.” Does it mean that the members of House Stark will all survive? Who knows, but most likely, it’s not a hint — it’s probably it’s just a tattoo for the sake of memory.

This is what Sophie said about the season finale: “Everyone is coming together to fight the impending doom. There’s a lot of tension between these little groups, battling for what they think is right. It’s Game of Thrones so it’s going to be bloodier and more death and more emotionally torturous than all the years before!”

Kristofer Hivju, who played Tormund, took cute selfies with cows during shooting.

Emilia Clarke with her colleagues and a scriptwriter of the show, Daniel Weiss

The actors found new costumes for the shoot.

In which movies can you see your favorite GOT actors?

A lot of things have changed in the life of Kit Harrington: this summer he married the actress Rose Leslie who played Ygritte in Game of Thrones. In 2017, the first season of the historic series Gunpowder was released. It tells the story about gunpowder’s start in 1605: Kit played the main role, and his partner was played by Liv Tyler.

In 2014, Harrington agreed to act in a new project by Xavier Dolan called The Death and Life of John F. Donovan. The cast of the film is very impressive and includes Natalie Portman, Michael Gambon, and Susan Sarandon. The premiere will take place this autumn during the Toronto International Film Festival.

By the way, people say that Kit wants to change his hairstyle in order to walk away from John Snow’s image. It’s such a pity, we’re going to miss his curls!

Emilia Clarke also shows some career development. She has a lot of interesting roles. You can see her in the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, and soon you can see a new movie Above Suspicion where the actress plays a snitch who falls in love with an FBI agent.

It is also known that the Mother of Dragons will act in a movie called The Garden of Last Days that tells 3 stories about a striptease club. So it looks like we are going to see Emilia from time to time and luckily Game of Thrones won’t be the highest peak of her career.

Peter Dinklage who played Tyrion Lannister also has gotten a lot of interesting roles. You have to see his amazing work in the Oscar-winning film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. You can also find his short yet very impressive role in the movie, Avengers: Infinity War.

The movie I Think We’re Alone Now is going to be released soon. In this movie, Peter Dinklage together with Elle Fanning plays the last couple on Earth. Now the actor is going to take part in a few new projects and the latest news says that he will play the main role in the movie Rumpelstiltskin. It’s nice to know that the talent of this actor is fully appreciated. We are looking forward to enjoying his new work.

• Maisie Williams who played Arya Stark starred in the first movie in the trilogy X-Men trilogy, The New Mutants. It’s funny but her character can turn into a wolf (hello, direwolves!). The premiere is expected in the summer of 2019.
• Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, will appear in the romantic comedy, Time Freak (the premiere will be in autumn, 2018). She’ll also play a mutant telepath in the movie, Dark Phoenix (of the X-Men franchise).
• Lena Headey who played Cersei Lannister together with Iain Glen (our beloved Jorah Mormont) acted in a British drama, The Flood. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) will play a policeman in the thriller, Domino (there’s one more premiere in Toronto).

Attention: there are spin-offs coming your way!

Even though the story is going to be over with Season 8, audiences will still have an opportunity to see the stories from the universe created by George Martin. 5 spin-off series are planned, and their plots take place long before Game of Thrones occurred.

The narration of the first spin-off will take place 8,000 years before the story shown in Game of Thrones. It will tell us the secrets of Westeros and the mystery of White Walkers. The spirit of the universe is promised to be preserved but there will be different characters. The script is ready and shooting will start in 2019.

There’s also some information about the second spin-off. The working title is Empire of Ash. Here, we’ll learn about the fall of Valyrian Freehold — the empire created by Valyrians. The plot will be connected with House Targaryen and will be about the fall of a mighty kingdom.

Are you waiting on the edge of your seat for season 8? Share your predictions and thoughts about the series finale in the comments below!