Sean Bean and George RR Martin On Game Of Thrones

The hugely-anticipated HBO adaptation is almost upon us

There’s a major news feature on the HBO TV adaptation of George RR Martin’s epic fantasy book saga A Song Of Ice And Fire in the new issue of SFX . The series is being called Game Of Thrones , named after the first book in the series (but losing its “A” along the way) and here we have an except from the article, with Sean Bean talking about his character, “Ned” Stark.

“Eddard Stark has a sense of duty, honour and loyalty, but is surrounded by backstabbers and betrayers, people who want to gain power, who want to gain the throne, and will do anything to achieve that,” says Bean.

Game Of Thrones certainly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to depicting the violence and bloodshed of George RR Martin’s world.

“Some of it is pretty awful,” admits Bean. “One of my friends gets stabbed in the eye, and I just stand and see that, then I have to fight this man. It just erupts out of nowhere, there’s just a flashpoint and it is just very messy. I think an audience will be very interested.”

“There are very few actors,” says executive producer David Benioff, “who have that sort of warrior spirit. These are people who grew up fighting each other with swords and Ned is someone who is at war for most of his life, and Sean’s got the ability to convey that.”

George RR Martin says of his experience working on the show, “My deal is that I write one script a year – so I wrote episode eight of this season. ‘The Pointy End’ is the title of that episode, adapted from the book. I’ve also been involved in the casting and various other discussions. David and Dan do consult with me once in a while, and sometimes they listen to me and sometimes they don’t! But I definitely feel like I am part of it.”

Read the full article in SFX 206, on sale now.