The final season of “Game of Thrones” promises to be just as bloody, if not more so, than the past seasons that gave the HBO blockbuster a reputation for bloodletting.
Speaking at the INTV Conference in Israel on a panel called “The Best of HBO,” the premium network’s SVP of drama, Francesca Orsi, promised that a whole bunch of the main cast will be killed off “one by one” during the eighth and final season that will air next year.
During the panel, Orsi discussed the first table read of the scripts for the six episodes that will make up the season — she said that the table read was also the first time any of them had read the season 8 scripts, period. And apparently the room got very emotional.
“None of the cast had received the scripts prior,” Orsi said, “and one by one they started falling down to their deaths.”
By the end of the read, Orsi said, the whole cast was crying and afterward gave a lengthy ovation.
“It was amazing. By the very end, everyone looked down and looked up and tears were in their eyes,” Orsi said.
Orsi caught a lot of flack on Tuesday for another comment she made during the panel when discussing negotiations with the cast of “Big Little Lies” for season 2.
HBO had not planned on a second season, and so had not locked any of the A-list cast into multi-season contracts. Given the star power involved, including Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, those re-negotiations were not cheap — and Orsi said the network was “sort of raped” financially in trying to make the second season work.
Orsi and HBO issued a statement later apologizing for the remark. “Obviously, I am embarrassed by my poor choice of words,” Orsi said.