'Game Of Thrones' Star Reveals He Wanted To 'Take A Piss' At The Showrunners With How His Character Died
Want to avoid Game of ThronesSPOILERS? Then back away immediately!
Actor Pilou Asbæk played Euron Greyjoy for nine intense episodes of HBO's critically acclaimed series Game of Thrones until his character was killed by Jamie Lannister in a duel on a beach in the series' penultimate episode.
Euron was killed, but Asbæk revealed he likes that viewers never actually saw the character die, saying he liked to tease the showrunners:
"The reason why I didn't want to die [on screen] is because I thought it would be so much fun to tease [co-showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff], because of course they wrote the scene as if he would die."
"So did [episode director Miguel Sapochnik], he wanted to direct it as if he would die. But I didn't want to do that, because you know sometimes you gotta take a piss at the showrunners."
The last time we saw Euron, he was staring up at the sky, bleeding out and claiming that he'd killed Jamie Lannister, the twin brother of Queen Cersei.
Asked whether Euron actually believes that he succeeded, Asbæk said Euron is...
"...that kind of guy, he's in self denial. He just wants to see the world burn, you know what I mean? He just wants to see people die."
He added that a couple more seasons to flesh out the storylines would probably have yielded a different fate for his character:
"He's the one who got Jaime Lannister, a guy who he has admired because Jaime has been one of the best fighters in the world and is the Kingslayer and has created a name for himself. And I'm a supporting cast member and my storyline has to be related to the main cast members, that helps as well."
"If there was a couple more seasons, maybe it would have been Jaime saying, 'I'm the man who got Euron Greyjoy!' But I don't know."
People definitely loved to hate Euron Greyjoy.
That's not Asbæk's fault, though; the decision to truncate the seventh and eighth seasons meant pretty much all of his character development went out the window.
Euron Greyjoy died as he lived: making everyone go “Ah, this fucking guy again”— Roy (@Roy) 1557715878.0
Euron Greyjoy looks like a can of Axe body spray— wikipedia brown-mormont (@wikipedia brown-mormont) 1557108654.0
There’s lots of unconventional favorite GOT character choices. I could see great arguments made for Sam, Yara, Theo… https://t.co/TZrGxVXFZJ— Mindy Kaling (@Mindy Kaling) 1557120452.0
When I see Cersei Lannister and Euron Greyjoy #GameofThrones https://t.co/rp9gao5qgF— Zak Ahmed (@Zak Ahmed) 1557110468.0
The “We deserved to kill Euron Greyjoy” squad #gameofthrones https://t.co/Ca3ZHn8WJx— Peregrina Tuc of House Greyjoy🦑 (@Peregrina Tuc of House Greyjoy🦑) 1557715275.0
If you ask Asbæk, though, he'd say his character actually got a happy ending:
"I think he's the only one with a happy end. The character was so lucky. He got to go to bed with the queen. He got to kill a dragon. And he almost killed Jaime Lannister. So out of my five scenes this season, three of them were spectacular or fun."
"First of all, the way they've written those scripts, so much is put into it. You can just relax, enjoy it, be in it as much as possible and wait for that moment for your character to shine. It's so well-written that every single character has at least a couple of those moments … until they die."
Compared to all the innocent citizens of King's Landing who were torched by Daenerys's dragon... yeah, we're inclined to agree.