"1. “Game of Thrones” is based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire; Season One follows book one, A Game of Thrones. Martin began the series in 1991 and as it became successful, appearing on best seller lists, he was immediately contacted by people who wanted to buy the rights. The author talked to his agents and said making the books into a film “just couldn’t be done—they would have to cut so much there would be nothing left.” Martin asserted that the only way the series could be translated would be on HBO. He told his agent, “That’s where it belongs; go forth and make it happen.”
2. Martin’s agent sent the books to Writer/Producer David Benioff (Troy, The Kite Runner); he loved them. Five hundred pages in, Benioff called Writer Dan Weiss and told Dan he had to read it, A Game of Thrones “was the most fun he had reading anything.”
3. According to Benioff, after reading the book he had only two actors in mind for characters: Sean Bean and Peter Dinklage.
4. In the original pilot for “Winter is Coming,” there are several actors who were later replaced, among them: Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn Stark and Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys Stormborn.
5. Director Tim Van Patten (“The Sopranos, The Pacific, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire”) came in to a meeting with storyboards he’d created for the opening sequence. When he was done presenting them, he waited for the reaction - no one said a word - there was just applause.
6. Fourteen countries were researched for possible filming locations.
7. The title sequence was by Angus Wall of E52 Elastic, after being given only the notion of a raven flying over a map.
8. All the snow and ice is created for the show.
9. Costumer Michele Clapton (“Sense and Sensibility, The Diary of Anne Frank”) “has a gift;” she creates looks for people in all the worlds. All the clothing is made new; the second part of the process is destroying the clothes so they look lived in.
10. When Benioff asked Music Supervisor Evyen Klean (“Enlightened, Mildred Pierce, The Pacific, Memphis Beat”) who to get to score the series, Klean suggested Composer Ramin Djawadi (Red Dawn, Safe House, Clash of the Titans, “Prison Break, Flash Forward”). Djawadi was phoned, he came in for a meeting and was hired. Three days later he called and said he couldn’t do it - he was working on a film. They “begged and begged” and finally the composer agreed to do the show.
11. All the weapons are created by Tommy Dunne. Benioff looks forward to his meetings with Dunne the most; “it’s like early Christmas to see all the weapons he comes up with.”
12. Martin and Benioff agreed that the children were hardest to cast.
13. Tyrion’s opening scene was not directly from the book - it was invented to show what Tyrion is all about.
14. They looked “high and low” for a silver horse, but were unable to find one. Benioff also spoke of the difficulty in getting dragon’s eggs right, the ones in the original pilot looked like “Christmas ornaments.” Gemma Jackson redesigned the final eggs and one was given to Martin as a wedding gift when he married Parris McBride in 2011.
15. Martin wrote “The Pointy End” script and noted that when he worked on CBS’s “The Twilight Zone,” the producer would never let writers adapt their own work. For “Game of Thrones,” Martin will do one script per season.
16. The Dothraki tongue was commissioned by HBO through the Language Creation Society.
17. Assistant Stunt Coordinator Buster Reeves (Red, Clash of the Titans, The Dark Knight Rises) directed all the fights.
18. Martin is especially pleased to see the depictions of strategy going on during war.
19. Martin was very happy with the staging of the scene when Tyrion arrives at the Lannister camp with Shagga and company (because of budget, the group walked out of the woods, instead of riding on horses).
20. People have asked Martin if the television show will impact his writing the books—in general, his answer is “No.” However, one exception may be in writing for the wildling, Osha (Natalia Tena)."
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