Gilly, played by Hannah Murray, reveals an intriguing detail most fans are not likely to have noticed. Photo / Supplied
Gilly, played by Hannah Murray, reveals an intriguing detail most fans are not likely to have noticed. Photo / Supplied
Obviously Game of Thrones is a richly detailed TV show where much time and attention has been paid to every intricate aspect of what you see on screen.
But we also know that TV and movies cheat what we see.
No one's going to build a real stone castle orweave a full tapestry wall covering from scratch. You can only take authenticity so far when you're working to a tight schedule.
But there's one impressive detail you may have missed in Game of Thrones. And we feel like it shows such dedication from the show's crew, it needs to be acknowledged.
In an interview with news.com.au, Hannah Murray, who plays Gilly on the series, said the heavy books you see on screen not only have real words written in them — in beautiful calligraphy, we might add — but actually tell the history of Westeros.
Hannah Murray plays Gilly in the series. Photo / Supplied
Someone in the art department bothered to write full, proper stories on those pages, pages that may never make it on screen in sharp relief.
"In one, which I think was cut, I was reading one the books in a scene we had and I was able to actually read it," Murray said.
"And it was about the ancient history of The White Walkers and the Children of the Forest. I thought it would just be some text they'd copied out of the phone book but it's really detailed beautiful."
She was so impressed, Murray called them "works of art in and of themselves".
Possibly, the art department had to make sure that every page that could potentially be seen on screen was perfect — some of those screens could be 80 inches and 4K.
Sam and Gilly are two of the few people with no aspirations to power in the saga. Photo / Supplied
We know that there are semi-close-ups of the books because John Bradley, who plays Sam Tarly told us that his day of filming sometimes ends with him flipping pages for the camera — no stunt hands for him!
"The worst thing about those book scenes is, when you've basically shot every single angle and line of dialogue, I have to stay behind for an hour with a camera over my shoulder just turning the page.
"And it's always at the very end of the day when you've done all the hard work and you're tired."
Well, let's give it for those good folks in the Game of Thrones art department. And for John Bradley and his wonderful hand acting.