Ed Sheeran recently admitted fans' poor reaction to his surprise cameo in Game of Thrones kind of dampened the whole experience.
The Grammy winner revealed as much during a new episode of the Armchair Expert podcast, telling co-hosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, "It was great...I feel like people's reaction to it sort of muddied my joy to it."
Fans of the show will recall that Sheeran appeared briefly as a Lannister soldier in Season 7, Episode 1 ("Dragonstone"). The pop star also revealed during the podcast that he was asked to appear on the show because Arya Stark actor Maisie Williams was a big fan.
"She's always been awesome,” Sheeran said of Williams, whom he first met at one of his shows when she was about 12 years old. "I don't think they had written the ending yet. It was meant to be her last season but it wasn't. And as a surprise for her, [they got] me on. So, she was meant to turn up on set. and I was by the fire." Unfortunately, Sheeran revealed, Williams' co-star Sophie Turner ruined the surprise before he got to set.
Kristian Nairn, who portrayed Hodor on the series, was among the critics of Sheeran's cameo, saying in June 2018, "I think it's stupid. I don’t mind going on the record on that. I think it takes you right out of the world." "Especially Ed Sheeran,” the actor continued. "I was like, 'Why is Ed Sheeran here?' I mean, Ed Sheeran's great. He's a great guy, great musician, but why is he in Game of Thrones?"
While Game of Thrones ended in May 2019 after eight seasons, the previously-announced prequel series House of the Dragon is currently in production at HBO Max. House of the Dragon co-showrunner Miquel Sapochnik recently teased that the prequel will have a "different tone" than the original series.
"House of the Dragon has its own tone that will evolve and emerge over the course of the show. But first, it's very important to pay respects and homage to the original series, which was pretty groundbreaking," Sapochnik explained. "We're standing on the shoulders of that show and we're only here because of that show. So the most important thing for us to do is to respect that show as much as possible and try and complement it rather than reinvent it."
House of the Dragon is coming to HBO and HBO Max in 2022.
Source: Armchair Expert via The Hollywood Reporter