‘Game of Thrones’ Star Says Producers Are ‘Absolutely Paranoid’ About Spoilers

By Stewart Clarke

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Game of Thrones” star Iain Glen has lifted the lid on the efforts of the show’s producers to avoid spoilers and leaks from the eagerly anticipated final season.

“They’re absolutely paranoid now about anyone finding out anything about the series and spoiling it,” he said in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast Friday. “We weren’t allowed a written word on a page. Everything was accessed through iPads with different security you had to get through to access it, which caused a problem for the actors, I have to say.

“But we found a way, either on phones or with pads…for it to be available on set.”

Glen’s comments echo those of director David Nutter, who told the Huffington Post recently that security on the set was “like the Gestapo,” with fake scenes being shot to throw people off the scent.

The eighth and final season of the hit series will bow in April 2019, HBO announced in a promo video that has received more than 10 million hits. The season will run to a shorter-than-usual six episodes, but plot details remain thin on the ground.

Glen, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, talked up the final run – but without, to and the producers’ relief, divulging specifics.

“This season was the first season ever that we sat and read the entire arc of the story from beginning to end right through over the course of a day,” he told Nihal Arthanayake on BBC Radio 5 Live. The legions of “Thrones” fans will not be disappointed, he added: “Honestly, these six episodes are absolutely phenomenal. The writers really, really came up trumps….The way they pulled it all together was a real writing task.”

Scottish actor Glen’s other credits include two “Resident Evil” movies and “Tomb Raider,” as well as indie fare such as “The Flood.” With its high body count, “” has seen plenty of cast turnover through the years, but Glen said emotions still ran high at the read-through of the final scripts.

“There were a lot of tears that day…and it’s been a season of that because it’s been a season of farewells and finishes,” he said. “Kit [Harington], if he wasn’t lying, had not read it, so he was reading it on that day for the first time.”

HBO is currently developing several projects set in the “Thrones” universe that will run after the series ends.