‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Showrunner Talks ‘Thrones’ Prequel

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is another type of Game of Thrones show, and Ira Parker is a different kind of Thrones-verse showrunner.

As you’ve probably heard, HBO’s new drama series tells the story of a penniless wandering “hedge knight,” Ser Duncan the Great (Peter Claffey), and his 10-year-old squire with a secret, nicknamed Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), as they compete in a jousting tournament to try to improve their fortunes. The series has no magic, dragons, or big battles. The tone is lighter than the original show or Dragon House. Plus, with only six episodes, the season is quite short – and moves faster than you might think, as many episodes are under 40 minutes.

Parker’s credits include the first season of Dragon House And Better things. He comes across as a huge fan of George RR Martin’s fantasy world who feels humbled and lucky to have gotten the keys to HBO’s next kingdom of Westeros – and really doesn’t want to screw it up.

The resulting show is a real charmer (read The Hollywood Reporterof the opinion) and a slow combustion. Unless you’ve read the news from series co-creator Martin The hedge knightyou won’t know how its assortment of characters and story threads relate to each other. But at some point, the story elements suddenly mix together and the result is exciting.

“We don’t throw a kid out the window in the very first episode,” Parker says. “But just, give us a second.”

THR spoke to Parker for this week’s cover profile of Martin. Below is a more detailed version of some of his spoiler-free comments on the show – and how he knows 12 secret Dunk and Egg stories for potential future seasons.

When you pitched your vision to HBO, what did you say that you think helped you land the job? Aside from, presumably, “it won’t be expensive.”

In fact, I don’t think I started this project. They just gave it to me. (Francesca Orsi, head of the HBO series) texted me or emailed me at four in the morning: “What do you think of Dunk and Egg?” » And I spent a week putting everything together. I had 15 pages of stuff that I was going to present to them and have this big, long conversation. Then when I called them and realized I already had the job. I immediately closed my mouth.

What helped me the most was learning that the series wasn’t necessarily made up of 10 episodes of an hour each. Being able to do six episodes, between 30 and 40 minutes long, was perfect for us. This meant we didn’t need to stretch the story. That meant we could make a faithful adaptation of it – which is obviously very much what George wanted, and something I was really looking forward to delivering because I’m a huge fan of these short stories. This way the elements we added don’t seem tangential. It feels like he’s filling out these short stories in a way that, hopefully, George would have done if he’d just written them as novellas instead of 80-page nuggets.

I feel like it’s just the right length. What kind of information did George give along the way that was valuable?

Firstly, just having George available whenever you need him is very helpful. He and I had a lot of conversations in the beginning. I spent a weekend in Santa Fe with George when HBO talked about it just to have a conversation and see how he feels about the whole thing. After it went well, I came back for a full week.

Yes, George does these writers summits for all the potential shows.

Yeah, it’s George and some of his favorite authors. We spent time together, explaining everything and exchanging ideas. It was one of the most fun and creative weeks I’ve ever had in my entire career. Then I went off to write the pilot and George was there every step of the way. He was very supportive and he read the first drafts of each episode, and he gave me some pretty timely feedback – he didn’t pull the wool over his head. He was always very open to conversations. In my very first meeting with George, before I even officially got the job, I promised him I wouldn’t put anything in there that he didn’t want. But we never got there. He pushed back a lot of things. I just explained the reason why I wanted to do something, and then he explained the reasons why I’m an idiot.

The first season therefore had a modest budget for a Thrones to show. Do you think that with season two – based on Martin’s second Dunk and Egg short story, The Sworn Sword — will you be allowed to expand the scope a little further? Will it still be six episodes?

It will still be six episodes. I think the scope will be the same, maybe even smaller. The budget has remained the same, but everything is more expensive due to inflation. Additionally, Volume 2 takes place in a period of drought, so we can’t film on location in Belfast. We have to go somewhere sunny with no water, which costs money – it’s a big expense that we didn’t have in the first season. I’m having a lot of fun with season two. It will be a different season and hopefully for the better.

I’m sure you’ll be happy not to freeze in Belfast in a field for three months.

I’m in Belfast at the moment and yes, it’s cold. But I’m from Canada and I spend a few weeks every winter where it’s minus 30 degrees. It’s nice!

When I spoke to George, he insisted that he had only written three Dunk and Egg novels that would span three potential seasons. So, are you concerned that, as with the original series, Knight will it get ahead of the books?

Even if we don’t know the ins and outs of each story, we canonically know the big beats of Dunk and Egg throughout their lives. So we wouldn’t necessarily encounter the same problems as the flagship. And George described 12 more of these stories that he shared with me. These stories take them throughout their lives. Some of them are only a paragraph, but they give you an idea of ​​where they’re going to go and who’s coming in and out of the story.

And look, I hope everyone likes it and I hope we can do more. But I don’t have a crystal ball. In fact, I don’t know – despite the time I’ve been doing it – what the public actually reacts to. Everyone likes to think they know, don’t they? But in the end we are Game of Thrones without all that. We have trees and horses. What made the original series a success? Was it the dead who came to kill humanity? Was it the dragons? Was it politics? Do you see a different family every week? Or simply the epic nature of the original and Dragon House?

Or is this the hope I have? We have one of the ingredients: two unusual characters – like Arya and the Hound, or Brienne and Podrick – who are paired up and have conversations. I hope that’s what (does) Thrones work). That’s a big part of what it was for me. So I hope we can do as much as possible. I would say HBO’s plan is for us to do the three novels, and that’s it. But I’d do 12. I’d do four now, then four more in 10 years, and four more 10 years after that – take them throughout their lives and like (Richard Linklater’s novel Childhood).

To me, Dunk and Egg are one of those canon concepts where you can go on and on because the story is not intensely serialized. Each is a standalone anthology-style adventure.

Yeah. Is there anything else you would like to know about George? He’s just the cutest. Honestly, I consider him a friend now. He is really nice and has been nothing but a plus. He cares about his people.

Yes, he really cares a lot about his characters.

Yeah, and that’s probably why those shows did so well. He really pushes people in the right direction. But I actually meant that he cared about her people – not its characters. The people around him. He just has a lovely group of people. He really wants everyone to succeed and be successful.

To find out more A Knight of the Seven Kingdomssee this week’s Hollywood journalist cover story: Heavy is the Crown: Inside Triumphs and Torments by George RR Martin.