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I've done feature films but I've not seen anything on this massive scale.

It's just vast.

It's just an epic.

It is huge.

It's never been done before in television, on this scale.

It's a character-driven story,

but within a genre which is rarely seen on television.

It's an epic fantasy.

At the core of it, there's a conflict for power.

It's rich in a way I've never seen fantasy be rich before.

It's got brilliant combination of the fantastical and the real.

It's very much based in character, and slowly as the season progresses,

we get to see more and more of this magical world.

It's got action, it's got adventure,

and love, passion.

Betrayal and greed and murder and sex.

Every character has such a full story. It's pretty intense.

There's real emotion,

real relationships that you can understand and relate to,

and there's so many twists and turns.

Fantasy fans will love it, but the HBO audience,

those people are going to love it too.

People are going to fall in love with these characters, become afraid for them.

And they should be afraid.

Nobody's safe.

When you play the game of thrones,

you win, or you die, there is no middle ground.

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Ned Stark is the centre of the series when the book opens.

He is the Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North.

He's in charge up there, and that's where he feels most at home.

He's a very loyal man, very decisive man,

especially loyal toward the king, and his family.

He's a born warrior.

He's a man who is instinctively, almost... he's direct.

He speaks as he feels, and acts according to his conscience.

It's his insistence on doing the right thing in a very corrupt world

that imperils the things he would try to protect.

He's married to Catelyn Stark,

and together they have a number of children.

Theirs is a very genuine, true marriage.

They're completely devoted to each other.

She respects him enormously. She challenges him.

Ned.

Ten is too young to see such things.

He won't be a boy forever.

Jon Snow is Ned's bastard Son.

He's grown up at Winterfell, but he is not a Stark himself.

The name "Snow" is a name that's given to bastards of high birth in the North,

so he's not Jon Stark, he's Jon Snow.

Jon has been raised as Ed's son,

alongside Ned's other sons and daughters,

much to the consternation of Ned's wife.

She's constantly watching him.

She doesn't trust him, she doesn't like him.

He represents unfaithfulness on her husband's part,

and that does not sit happily with her.

There's always been a seething and pure hatred

emanated towards Jon from Catelyn,

very obviously, very out in the open.

I believe Ned loves Jon, Jon Snow, but he can't quite,

he can't be seen to be giving him the same amount of love

that he gives to his other children.

You might not have my name, but you have my blood.

In this world, being a bastard son,

he's not allowed to get anywhere,

so, uh, that's why he goes to the Night's Watch,

because there, everyone's equal, and he can rise to the top.

Welcome.

The Night's Watch is an order of men dedicated to protecting the wall,

and protecting the seven kingdoms from all the dangers that lurk beyond.

The wall was built, legend has it,

to keep the things in the North, out.

Creatures that very few people believe in anymore,

because they haven't been seen for thousands of years.

The threats beyond the wall seemed less and less,

so less and less people are sent out there to protect the place.

In a lot of ways, it's a kind of prison to send people that are troubling

different places in the kingdoms, so they can get rid of them.

Ah, rapers.

They were given a choice, no doubt.

Castration or the wall.

Most choose the knife.

Not impressed by your new brothers?

When Jon takes his vows at the wall,

he can't be involved in his family affairs anymore,

and he can't be involved in anything that may happen to his family,

'cause he probably assumes that nothing will happen to his family,

that they will live a peaceful existence like he has.

Obviously, things don't go peacefully for the Starks.

When we find Ned Stark, there's a sense that his world is changing,

and you'll hear the phrase several times, "Winter's coming".

Seasons aren't of a fixed length in this world,

so winter can last a year,

winter can last two years, winter can last ten years.

It becomes very hard, and people have to really knuckle down,

and you know, watch themselves, 'cause it's a dangerous place.

You're a Stark of Winterfell.

You know our words. Winter's coming.

You were born in the long summer.

You've never known anything else.

But now, Winter is jolly coming,

and in the winter, we must protect ourselves.

Ned Stark leaves Winterfell

because King Robert has asked him to become the Hand to the King.

I need you, Ned...

At the King's Landing.

Never pay your way, no damn use to anybody.

Robert and Ned have a relationship that goes back.

They grew up essentially as brothers.

They fought together, and waged the revolution that raised Robert to the throne.

They have a very close relationship,

and a trust above all else, I think, between each other.

Robert has grown fat and lazy,

and he's taken his eye off the ball.

He realizes that he needs somebody to watch his back,

and the only person he can trust is Ned Stark.

You're a loyal friend.

The last one I've got.

Robert's a good guy, in some ways,

but he's someone who was much better fitted for winning the crown

than he is for holding it.

He likes getting drunk and chasing women.

I believe that Cersei really loved Robert in the beginning,

and thought that they could make it work.

She's never been very close with her husband.

It was very much a political marriage,

and hasn't been a great emotional success.

It's born of misery, and they're used to it now,

and that's how they continue,

how they live, and it's all they know of each other.

How long can hate hold a thing together?

Well, 17 years is quite a long time.

Cersei is a rather ruthless player of the Game of Thrones,

and her concern is very much as Queen,

is to eliminate any threats to House Lannister.

Lannisters are the richest family.

And so they have a lot of power.

Even over people that are enemies,

but they owe us money, so we have a good grip on them.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Rich as a Lannister?"

I am a Lannister!

Tyrion, son of Tywin!

Tyrion Lannister has had a very complicated upbringing

in relation to his father, and his sister,

because of his size, and his mother died when he was born.

So, there's a very dark cloud hanging over him.

Cersei despises Tyrion.

She blames him for the death of her mother,

and Tyrion is as wily as she is.

And so, I think she's very threatened by his calculations.

He has zero powers with the sword,

so has to defend himself with wit and charm.

Unlike Jaime.

Jaime is one of the members of the King's Guard,

an elite order of knights who are the secret service, if you would.

Jaime is somewhat infamous.

He's called "The King Slayer,"

because he actually killed the king that he had sworn to protect.

What about Aerys Targaryen?

What did the Mad King say when you stabbed him in the back?

Did he call you a traitor?

Did he plead for a reprieve?

It's because he broke that code when he killed the previous King

that he is considered not quite trustworthy.

He loves his sister, Cersei.

She's kind of the only one who really knows him, and accepts him.

She trusts Jaime over everybody else,

although there's a definite sense with Cersei

that if it will further her game of power,

she'll get rid of anybody, it doesn't really matter.

Everyone who isn't us, is an enemy.

Joffrey is a pretty mean guy.

As a Prince, he's pretty pompous and arrogant.

Joffrey is an evil child.

And scary.

And twisted.

That was my lady sister you were hitting, do you know that?

Stop it! Arya, stay out of this.

There's a second set of characters that you also encounter,

who are across the Narrow Sea,

in an entirely different continent,

and that is Viserys Targaryen,

the son of the King that Jaime slew,

and his sister is Daenerys.

Viserys Targaryen spent his entire life trying to get back the Iron Throne,

which he believes was stolen from his family.

When they write the history of my reign, sweet sister,

they will say it began today.

Daenerys is being wedded off to Khal Drogo,

who is the Lord of the Dothraki, who are a nomadic warrior tribe.

Khal Drogo is a savage beast.

He's a killing, fighting machine.

He's this huge, huge formidable creature.

So, she's completely and utterly petrified of him.

Viserys doesn't have any experience or real understanding

or knowledge of the Dothraki people.

He just sees them in terms, of their numbers,

and Khal Drogo just in terms of a warrior.

He feels he has this right, to the throne,

and that's what's taking him through and that's what's given him strength.

He is such a frustrated, repressed individual,

and he has been vicious to his sister.

Have you forgotten who you are!? Look at you!

You do not command the dragon.

I am Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.

Meanwhile, far to the North,

beyond the wall, which is just a boundary of the Seven Kingdoms,

in lands of perpetual ice and cold,

a supernatural threat is stirring after centuries of sleep.

The things you speak of,

they've been gone for thousands of years.

It wasn't gone, old man.

It was sleeping.

And it ain't sleeping no more.

Game of Thrones is a fantasy world, and there is magic,

but it's not about monsters, it's about humans.

Although there is magic, it's peripheral,

but you know it's there, which makes it believable, accessible.

We have created a world that is on one hand very recognizable.

At the same time, it has been peppered with fantasy elements,

and the way those two things come together is going to fascinate people.

The palate is varied and fascinating.

We've got the Northern-most kingdoms being covered with snow

and all this harsh landscape.

We've got the middle kingdoms, which are lush,

and then you've got southern, sort of dry, arid, desert sort of places.

We had researched probably 14 different countries

before we settled on Northern Ireland, and Malta.

The decision to shoot in Northern Ireland was predicated on being able to find

a wide variety of locations very close to Belfast.

There are mountains,

and there are fertile green fields,

and there are beautiful old growth forests,

and there's just such a range of environments.

The great thing about Belfast is you've got the hall, where we've been filming,

which is the biggest set you've ever seen.

And then they find these incredible locations.

Certain areas just lend themselves, they just look so spectacular,

that you know if you could get the story into them,

it would reflect the amazing Irish landscape. Guards!

This is country.

I've half a mind to leave 'em all behind and keep going.

What we've tried to do is be as eclectic in our sources

and our choices of references for everything,

whether it's costumes, props, set, locations we've chosen.

All the worlds I adore, I've managed to kind of go into,

and pluck out bits that I think have become appropriate

for all our different worlds that we're trying to create.

We went a lot of far eastern, and a bit of Moroccan,

African, traditional medieval,

but not trying to go for that "ye olde English" look.

If you mix it up enough, and don't use too much of one culture, then it works.

Gemma was very clear that she wanted to give every world its own distinct feel.

So when you're at Castle Black, you know you're at Castle Black,

you're not going to confuse it with Pentos,

and you're not going to confuse it for Winterfell.

The Winterfell of any of them was probably the closest

to a kind of traditional Northern European world,

with thick strong castle walls,

and big stone, and I just really looked at the kind of northern Castles of Europe.

The North is a little bit Scandinavian,

but really, that's the closest you get to grungy old-fashioned medieval,

'cause it's dour, and dark, and nasty.

The North, basically, have to clothe themselves

with products they get within a 15 mile radius.

There's not much trading, so they tend to wear greys and blues, quite murky colours.

It's very leather-based, very practical, lots of fur.

It's a direwolf.

There are no direwolves south of the wall.

There were five.

The direwolf's not been seen for many years around Winterfell,

and so it's kind of an omen, a dead direwolf,

that's just littered a birth of pups.

And it's a massive creature, the direwolf,

it's our banner, our sign.

Five pups.

One for each of the Stark children.

We were meant to have them.

It's obvious to Jon at that point what this means.

The direwolf is the sygil of the Stark house,

there's five of them, there's five Stark children.

This is clearly a sign.

These are all Inuit dogs,

which is a breed that was developed basically to have a dog that looks like a wolf.

The dogs are supposed to rip peoples' throat out,

and eviscerate people.

We teach them to do things that will make them look like they're attacking,

and then, otherwise, we have ravens,

and they're actually as trainable as a dog.

They're a lot of fun.

Several times, we're having them do big flying scenes.

Look, commander.

A raven.

Castle Black is the furthest North we go at the moment,

and it sits at the bottom of the ice wall, and it's supposed to be grim.

You get the feeling the whole thing's gone to rack and ruin.

Castle Black is, historically, the place was quite grand,

and it's faded and fallen to disrepair.

It's filthy, it's freezing cold.

The mess hall is foul, very brutal, very sparse.

I did some research on people who lived way up in the Antarctica,

some of it was from Eskimos and things, where they live on whale blubber,

and they're all pale, and everything is white.

So, all the food is very kind of basic, sort of colourless stews.

The intention was to build it as somewhere where they could work

and not be constantly worrying about CGI and green screen.

And I think we've been relatively successful on that.

You walk into Castle Black, and there it is,

and there's the wall, and there's the lift for the wall,

and that's all the things you've read about.

It's very easy to get immersed in that world

with such incredible sets and detail put in.

Well, Lord Snow, it appears you're the least useless person here.

We worked with a wonderful fight director called Buster,

and we didn't have much time to learn the fights,

but Buster was brilliant, and you can pretend that you're a hard warrior.

I was pretty fortunate with these guys.

They're all pretty athletic, young lads,

so I didn't have to do much training with them.

They all seemed to grasp it pretty well. The gift of youth.

Yield, yield, yield!

One of the biggest challenges, I think,

for Michele Clapton in the Night's Watch

was to be able to tell you something

about the different backgrounds of these people

by the costume that they had on,

and the costume had to be black.

It's not a uniform, because they're not funded enough to do that anymore.

The higher people will bring clothes with them

that are probably more suitable.

The others actually often in a thin jacket. That's all they have.

Everybody knew what this place was, and no one told me.

No one but you.

Tyrion relates to Jon Snow

because Jon is the black sheep of his family as well.

Tyrion is treated like a bastard, so they have that in common.

My Lord of Lannister!

Shall I entertain you while you eat?

I can sing your father's victory at King's Landing.

Nothing would more likely ruin my supper.

The whole thing about King's Landing is it's supposed to be quite lush.

You've been up in the frozen North and everything,

and down in King's Landing, people are supposed to be growing things.

King Robert refers to them all being half-naked, deliciously sweaty and gorgeous.

You feel you've come to a really hot and sexy place,

and there's a light coming through the windows.

A lot of greenery and plants on the balconies growing through.

Water becomes the backdrop for King's Landing.

We'll take the basis for what's there,

take away what we don't like,

and add bits and features that we do like.

Our ability to create a world that you couldn't quite pinpoint.

Malta was a fantastic location.

It's been settled successively by so many different people,

so there's so many different traditions.

Anything Mediterranean, North African, Southern European,

we can kind of more or less find here,

and we can dress it to cover any period.

Malta is so exotic, and mysterious, and ancient.

I think it really lends itself well to the stories,

and gives it a lot of flavour.

It's a much more Mediterranean feel, there, near the sea.

They can trade, they have silks, they have colours.

There's more jewellery and more flash.

Down at King's Landing, anything goes.

It's colourful, it's corrupt, there's brothels,

there's gaming, anything goes.

Jory. Lord.

We have two large sets for King's Landing.

There's a compose set for all the personal quarters in the Red Keep.

And then we have the Throne Room.

The Throne Room is magnificent.

It's huge, it's got this pantheon floor,

it's got these great big pillars.

I wanted to try and make that feel incredibly sort of cathedral-esque.

The centre most prop in Westeros is the Iron Throne,

so we wanted to get it right.

Obviously we'd made a model of it in the art department.

We had a lovely fret-maker here called Gavin, who made it.

It's quite a frightening piece.

It is, literally, blackened swords, bent into a throne.

It's melted and pitted and hammered

and uncomfortable, which is what it's supposed to be.

The first time I walked through the throne room,

I was really intimidated.

It's the size of a football field.

I didn't know how we were going to light it, fill it with people.

I didn't know how I was going to move them through the space.

Thankfully, we figured it out.

The throne room was pretty amazing.

When you go into a set that they've built,

and just the sheer size of that is just,

makes you feel like you're in this sort of mystical story.

Each of these worlds, there is a real kind of pleasure to do.

The other one is the Aerie.

I was dumbstruck when I first saw the Aerie.

It was breathtaking.

The Aerie, the look of that had to be quite quirky,

have an uncomfortable feel about it,

and a slightly unhinged atmosphere.

So, a lot of faded tapestries,

and the weir wood throne, the biggest piece for us, made of real wood.

It was actually three different pieces of wood,

all welded together, and it's incredibly heavy, get a crane to get it in.

I liked the twisty shapes of it,

which seemed to go with this high height and everything.

Gem was keen we get a verticality into it.

We have a staircase that's cantilevered out,

and rises around the space, with the moon door at its centre,

this kind of execution spot that the Aerie has.

The whole throne with the gnarly wood, and the greys,

and it just, all the kind of dusty feeling,

the moon door, I mean, the sets are amazing on this.

It's unbelievable, really, because when you read a scene in a book,

you kind of start to imagine what it's going to be like.

And then you get on set, and you think it's better.

It's just more than I ever would have anticipated, or expected.

Look where we are! It's incredible.

Malta was also chosen because it had a fantastic coast line.

A lot of our story has to do with a continent separated by a narrow sea.

It won't be long now. Soon you will cross the narrow sea

and take back your father's throne.

When will they be married?

Soon.

The Dothraki never stay still for long.

The Dothraki are a bit of a cross between the Mongols

and some of the Native American tribes.

They are horse people.

They live in these great vast grass plains,

and they make a living by conquering other people,

much like Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde.

Khal Drogo is one of the most brutal and effective warriors

in a world where violence translates directly to power.

They're barbarians.

They're living, they're nomadic, though they have a city,

they're on the move most of the time.

We looked at lot of different tribes, people that travel a lot.

Grass huts, mud huts, that sort of thing, then mixed it up.

So far we've got rounded tents,

which are more sort of igloo-shaped,

and skins, and clothes, and all sorts of things.

Then they get into these earthen tents.

So, we've kind of created another kind of structure.

We actually thought it would be much more believable

if we heard them speaking their own language,

rather than have them speak in heavily-accented English.

David Peterson, Linguistics Professor at Berkley,

essentially invented the Dothraki language.

When you're creating a language

that's supposed to look like a natural language,

first, you must start with the culture.

There are actually in Dothrakian

more words for "kill" than for "love".

It's incredible language, getting your mouth around the words,

like, they're so expressive.

It's really worth trying to do it right,

because it sounds right, you know?

And if you do...

It always sounds really crap, so it is worth trying to master it.

When they first told me, I was like,

"Cool, I'll totally do it."

And I got it, and I was pretty scared,

but it was a great challenge.

We think the people are going to really enjoy being taken to this place

that is both so recognizable, and so different.

People who are not among the fan base

will be amazed to discover a world that is so intriguing and so fascinating,

and much closer to their own experience

than they would have ever imagined.

This is so human, and so true, and so engaging,

and yet completely foreign, and it's just an incredible host of characters.

You think you know them,

you think you've got them pegged as what they seemingly are,

but they really aren't.

It's very different from anything that's been done.

I can't think of another fantasy which is as gritty and as real.

It doesn't really matter if you are traditionally a fan of the fantasy genre.

It's once you become invested in the characters,

you care about what's going to happen to them.

It's encompassing, actually... without the costumes,

it could be contemporary life.

It's about people caring, fighting, loving, hating.

It involves politics, shifting alliances,

greed, avarice.

Sex.

It's just the best story!

You follow it and you get excited by it,

and when you think you got it figured, it completely changes its mind.

You don't know which way it's gonna turn, what avenue it's gonna go.

There's always something new around the corner,

something surprising.

Starks are all right eventually.

Winter is coming.

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