No beating around the bush here.
Given the huge number of fatalities in Game of Thrones, we would have expected that cast members would understand that their job security is somewhat precarious.
As we’ve seen throughout the seasons, nobody in Westeros, not even the most popular characters (with the honourable exception of one, of course) is safe, but it would appear as if one more recent casualty took exception to the manner in which they made their exit.
And, it would seem, with some justification.
Here’s where the spoilers come in so if you’re not up to speed, look away now.
In the very first episode of Season Six, Doran Martell (played by Alexander Siddig), the Prince of Dorne, was stabbed to death by Ellaria Sand, a particularly gruesome death in any other show but pretty standard for Game of Thrones.
In an interview with startrek.com, however (Siddig also stars in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Siddig suggested that he was meant to last significantly longer in Season Six and that his exit may have been down to something he said off set.
Siddig talks at length about Game of Thrones in the interview, which you can see in full here, and is positively gushing about it at times, but the quotes about his exit make for very interesting reading.
“It’s funny, I’m not really sure what happened there,” he said.
“I was contracted to do at least four episodes this season, but then I was in L.A. doing publicity for something else, and I got a call at the Chateau Marmont and there were familiar voices on the other end of the phone.
“It was one of those guys, and because they didn’t introduce themselves it was like, ‘Hi, it’s me.’ I was like, ‘Is that David or Daniel?’ Anyway, they said, ‘You know what this phone call is about.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, well, I guess I do.’ ‘So we were going to kill you off at the end of last season, but we decided that we’re going to have to kill you off at the beginning of next season.’
“I was like, ‘Okay, life goes on.’ But there was something wrong about that because I had been contracted for four episodes in the following season, so if they were going to kill me off at the end of the last season why would they contract me for those four episodes? Because it costs them money whether I do them or not, so it’s not great business sense to do it just in case.”
Siddig went onto suggest that his earlier-than-intended exit may have been down to the popularity of the character or, despite him speaking about his efforts to keep plot details under wraps elsewhere in the interview, something he said off set.
“So something happened; I have no idea what,” he said.
“There was an enormous amount of fan excitement when I got named to be on the show, and everyone was like, ‘Oh my god, yes, Doran Martell. He’s going to be great as Doran Martell.’ That might have been the kiss of death. Maybe they didn’t want quite that much attention on that character.
“Maybe they thought, ‘Well, let’s prove that we’re going to stray from the books. We’re going to do something else, and he will be our first example of that.’ So maybe that could have been the case. Or maybe I just screwed up. Maybe I said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”
Read Siddig’s interview in full on startrek.com here.
