The DVD and Blu-ray release of Game of Thrones season 2 hits on Tuesday, February 19 and includes a huge bundle of special content, including commentaries on every episode, special featurettes, histories accessible in-episode, and hidden “dragon eggs” (deleted scenes, actually).
Some of what gets revealed in those commentaries and featurettes is a little eye-popping, so I’ve combed through all of it and pulled out some of the best bits for curious fans. Want to know how to get on the show? Need a summary of the hints dropped about the forthcoming third season? Want to know what wildfire is made of? And what cast member the entire ensemble is really worried about? Read on!
![GoTS2-5]( "GoTS2-5")
1.) Everyone is really afraid Joffrey actor Jack Gleeson is going to get hurt.![GoTS2-1]( "GoTS2-1")
In nearly every episode commentary, whenever Joffrey comes on screen the commenting cast or crew members go out of their way to point out that actor Jack Gleeson is not at all like the character he plays. It gets brought up so often that one can only assume that there is a very real shared fear that someone might genuinely harm the actor based on his portrayal of Joffrey. (Or rather, based on his having to portray Joffrey.)
According to several different sources throughout the commentaries, Gleeson is actually a very sweet, very quiet intellectual (the showrunners once found him smoking a pipe and reading Kierkegaard on set), and is considered a scholar at Trinity College in Dublin. He’s also intent on going into teaching after the show is over, and not into full-time acting.
10.) What’s coming in season 3?
The commentaries, features, and other special features were fairly mum on season 3 of Game of Thrones but a few tidbits did come out:
-We will hear the language of High Valyrian in season 3.
-Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) is filming in Belfast in season 3 instead of exclusively in Iceland. Belfast is where the castle and interior sets are located.
-Hodor gets a monologue in episode 9 of season 3! Or, according to the showrunners, “Hodor goes OFF.”
11.) The oldest alcohol on Earth, skinny dipping, and more fun miscellaneous bits.-As a kid, Michelle Fairley played on the Irish cliffside location where her character and Renly Baratheon parley with Stannis in episode 3, “Garden of Bones.”
-The actor playing Ser Dontos in the beginning of episode 1, “The North Remembers” had to do fourteen takes of the scene where he’s being drowned with wine.
He was so hammered by the end of shooting that he went skinny dipping in the Adriatic Sea immediately afterwards.-The horse that Theon and Yara are on during the scene where Theon unknowingly feels up his sister would never stop farting and is the main thing the two actors remember about that scene.
-The kid actors aren’t allowed to watch the sex scenes in the show.
-In episode 3, during the Arya scene with Yoren just before the King’s troops show up, the actor playing Hot Pie is actually asleep. (Watch everyone but him get up on cue.)
-The actress who plays Melisandre is afraid of: rats, mice, pigeons, turtles, elephants, and other animals. “[And] I’m still afraid to ride a horse with nobody holding it.”
-Melisandre’s pregnant belly and crotch was one prosthetic piece or, as the actress dubbed it, “my super-merkin.”
-
Charles Dance was so effective as Tywin that crew would rush to assist him based on the terror his character instilled.-The direwolves are now played by actual wolves, enlarged via CGI.
-Rose Leslie, the actor playing Ygritte, actually grew up in a castle.
-When filming in Iceland for scenes Beyond-the-Wall, crew members would pick off ice from the 10,000+ years old glaciers to put in their drinks back at the hotel.
-The farmboys that Theon burns in episode 7, “A Man Without Honor” to fake that he killed Bran and Rickon are actually two orphans that Bran granted to the farmer during a scene in episode 1.
-
Straight from the showrunners: “To all you Sansa haters out there… suck it.”(Why don't you start by not sabotaging her storyline?)-Conleth Hill, the actor playing Varys, loves to improvise and try and break his fellow actors during takes.
-
Peter Dinklage: “I’ve peed in all the corners of these castles! Don’t tell anyone.”-So much fake blood was used during the Blackwater battle scenes that it began pouring into the lake in many small rivers.
-The House of the Undying was inspired by the painting “Isle of the Dead.”
source
“Having the actors switch their voices between pre-recorded and live, and having them sing in pre-recorded sessions before they even filmed the given scene, would have lacked immediacy and power,” Mr. Mackintosh said. “People who think we could have done it any other way just really don’t know how ‘Les Misérables’ works.”
She wrote alongside the picture: 'Thank you @badwoodx for the amazing sharpie tat! I loveeeee you're amaz!'
