Despite ridicule and disappointment surrounding the final season, Richard Brake, the original actor who played the Night King in Game of Thrones, expressed praise for how his character met his demise during the Battle of Winterfell.
In an interview with Consequence of Sound, Brake claimed he loved seeing the Night King coming to an end by the hands of Arya Stark, played by Maisie Williams.
“I did watch the end of the season,” Brake said. “I didn’t know ahead of time what was gonna happen, but I love the way my character ended up dying because Arya was always my favourite. I wasn’t surprised. I thought it was a brilliant development, actually.”
Brake played the villain in Season Four and Season Five of the series before Vladimir Furdik took on the role in Season 6 and onwards due to scheduling issues and his decision to pursue other projects.
“It was ultimately a scheduling issue,” the actor added. “I was doing another series — it was Kurt Sutter’s series The Bastard Executioner — which, unfortunately, didn’t do very well. But, it’s very difficult to schedule around Game of Thrones. Vlad is wonderful, who took over the role, and he’s a stuntman primarily, so it kind of made some sense anyway for them to do that, so that was ultimately the reason.”
“A lot of people ask, ‘Are you sad about that?’ I’m not even remotely sad because I would’ve never been able to do all this work that I’ve done subsequently. And I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have been able to do 3 From Hell, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done 31. So, there’s quite a few things I would never have wanted to miss had I continued the role. And I always say that I’m lucky I got to be in one of my favourite episodes, ‘Hard Home’, so that was a real thing.”
Do you think Richard Brake made the right decision? Do you agree that the Night King had a brilliant death at the hands of Arya? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @flickeringmyth…
