“Game of Thrones” star John Bradley is the focus of what has become the breakout moment from the show’s Season 7 premiere, a montage showing the daily life of his character, Samwell Tarly, as he trains to become a Maester.
It’s a fantastic sequence, but the catch? Samwell has perhaps the worst job ever, mainly because of how much human poop he’s required to deal with. The montage shows Sam lugging heavy books around the stacks in the Maesters’ library (but forbidden from reading the ones that he needs), emptying chamber pots and cleaning out the communal toilets, serving other maesters food that looks suspiciously like the stuff in the chamber pots and communal toilets … rinse and repeat. It’s so gross that Sam (and the audience) spends a lot of time dry-heaving.
So how did they make the excrement look so real? Bradley managed to soak up the secret during the shoot.
“Apparently, I now know, if you need to recreate human excement onscreen, the best way to do it is to soak fruitcake and add a bit of water in there and you’ve got just the stuff,” Bradley told TheWrap.
“Every day’s a school day,” he added.
But now that you know, Bradley definitely doesn’t want to see any recreations. “Please don’t send me your DIY poop videos,” he says. “I’ve seen far too much of those.”
Watch the clip above.