David and Dan observing the filming of a key King’s Landing scene.
With every great story there is a beginning. For Game of Thrones, it began with David Benioff and Dan Weiss reading a series of epic novels by George R. R. Martin and, with his hard won blessing, putting together a pitch for the only network they thought could bring the project to life: HBO.
Now, at the end of their fourth successful season, David and Dan revisit that letter and look back over the milestone moments for the series.
C. A. TAYLOR: Reading the pitch letter you sent to HBO in 2006, it’s clear you knew you had found something special in George R. R. Martin’s books. You went as far as to bet your careers on the series’ success. (I think you may have won.) Did you ever imagine that it would be as huge a phenomenon as it has been?
DAVID BENIOFF AND D. B. WEISS: No. We imagined a few different kinds of phenomena that it might be. A “thing that would have been really cool if the only place in the world that could do it didn’t just say no” phenomenon. A “well, we just wasted three years of our lives and a thousand gallons of hope on a pilot that tanked and was not picked up” phenomenon. A “we made a show watched by about a third as many people who would need to watch it to justify its expense” phenomenon. But “huge phenomenon” never seemed a likely contender.
CT: Was there a particular moment when you realized what the show was becoming?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: When (HBO CEO) Richard Plepler first told us, in confidence, that he needed advanced copies of a season’s episodes for the President of the United States. And when a friend sent us a video of the line outside the GoT exhibition in New York. And when our mothers stopped asking if we’d found another job yet.
CT: You have often been quoted as saying that one of your main goals for the show was to make it as far as the Red Wedding. What was it about that moment that made it such a key milestone for you?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: Well, the effect it seems to have had on people watching it was the exact same effect it had on us when we first read it. It was perhaps the most powerful feeling a fictional event had ever caused in us. And the thought of bringing that feeling to the screen was very compelling. Basically, we wanted to ruin a lot of people’s months.
CT: Looking back over the first four seasons, is there any key episode, scene, or moment that stands out for you as something you are particularly proud of how it turned out?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: It’s impossible to pick one, or two. We’ve been lucky enough to work with a ridiculous number of ridiculously talented people, and their combined efforts have provided the show with an embarrassment of riches.
CT: You both directed episodes for seasons three and four. Was this something you always planned on trying and was it difficult to approach the episode as both writer and director?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: The arguments with the writers were very uncomfortable. Those guys are monumental assholes.
We had always planned on trying it, yeah, if we got to the place where the show was working well and we felt comfortable stepping away for the time it took to do it. And it’s been a tremendous amount of fun. By the time we did it, we were lucky enough to be working with people we knew, loved, and trusted. So it was like being tossed into the deep end—but with arm floaties.
CT: Looking to the future, what do you think your biggest challenges will be with the upcoming series?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: Well, every year things get bigger and more ambitious, on the production level. So moving forward, the challenge will always be to see just how much we can shoot and post in time for next year’s premiere air date. As far as the story goes . . . the cast list changes on this show. In the first three seasons, it was largely an issue of dealing with expansions, and how to keep an increasingly large number of characters vital and in-play. From the end of season three, the challenge has changed, somewhat—we’re in the contraction phase, moving slowly but surely toward an endgame. Now it’s more about the ways the show evolves in light of the departures of those characters that are no longer with us. Joffrey’s death, for instance—that changes the dynamics of the show’s world drastically.
CT: If you could bring back one person from the dead, who would it be?
BENIOFF AND WEISS: We’d have Khal Drogo haul Joffrey, Robb, Cat, and Ned from the underworld on his back. He can probably manage. He’s bulked up since he died. If he can’t quite do it, Tywin can carry one of them.