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George R.R. Martin Declined a Cameo in the Final Season of ‘Game of Thrones’

By March 1, 2019Adaptations, News

George R.R. Martin, author of the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, shot to fame following HBO’s smash hit adaptation known as Game of Thrones. The show first aired in 2011 and this year its eighth and final season is set to air. Both Martin and the show’s writers have expressed a desire to have the book’s author make a cameo appearance in the show, but so far their schedules seem to have never aligned. Now, with only one season left to air, Martin has revealed he declined one last opportunity to appear in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Series showrunners, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, extended an invitation to Martin to appear in the final season, but the author revealed in an interview with EW that he had to reject the offer in favour of continuing work on the long awaited Winds of Winter, the sixth instalment in the series.

“David and Dan invited me to a cameo in one of the final episodes, which I was tempted to do,” Martin said. “But I didn’t think just for the sake of a cameo I could take the time to return to Belfast.”

Martin went on to point out that he did originally have a cameo in the pilot episode of Game of Thrones, though that was eventually re-shot and his appearance was one of many scenes from the original episode which never saw the light of day. “There was a cameo in the original pilot that was cut,” he said. “I was a guest at Dany’s wedding. But that was when she was played by Tamzin Merchant so all that footage got thrown out when we recast with Emilia Clarke.”

It has been more than eight years since the latest novel in the series was released and it has been well publicised how Martin has struggled to get the sixth book out, not to mention the fact that there’s at least another book after that, A Dream, of Spring, to follow Winds. Martin had originally hoped his books may be complete before the show finished, but the show overtook the books long ago and will be first to show how the story wraps up, at least in terms of the broad strokes.

Game of Thrones season 8 is set to air on April 14 and a prequel show has also been announced, perhaps Martin can make a cameo in that?

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