A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS – Season 1 Key Art | ©2026 HBO

George R.R. Martin has written a great deal about the fictional realm of Westeros, and that’s not just because each individual novel in his GAME OF THRONES series is a massive tome. Besides being involved in the HBO adaptations of his work, Martin has penned prequel novels and novellas about the Seven Kingdoms (as well as his substantial body of non-THRONES-related books and scripts).

The latest of Martin’s Westeros tales to be adapted as a television series is A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, airing on HBO Sunday nights and available on HBO Max. The first season is based on Martin’s novella THE HEDGE KNIGHT. This concerns the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall, played by the 6’5” Irish actor Peter Claffey. Duncan, or “Dunk” as he is more often called, isn’t from a royal or important family, or even a real knight. However, one knight can dub someone else a knight, and Duncan claims his former employer, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb), knighted him before dying. Since no one else was present at the time, it’s impossible to prove otherwise.

The reason for the ruse is so that Duncan can joust in a tournament and thereby perhaps earn at least enough money to keep himself and the three horses he inherited fed – if he doesn’t die trying. Fortunately, the young but canny boy Egg, played by Dexter Sol Ansell, attaches himself to Duncan as the hedge knight’s squire.

Together, Dunk and Egg face life on the road in A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS. The series is set in an era between the events of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON and GAME OF THRONES, and was shot in and around Belfast, Northern Ireland, where some of GAME was made.

HBO organizes a Q&A Zoom panel for the press that features Claffey, Ansell, fellow KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS actors Finn Bennett, Bertie Carvel, Tanzyn Crawford, Daniel Ings, Sam Spruell, Shaun Thomas, and series co-creator (with Martin)/showrunner Ira Parker.

Parker believes KNIGHT’s focus on fewer main characters will help viewers easily access the show’s universe, even if they haven’t seen GAME OF THRONES and/or HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

“I think, I hope, that it makes an excellent entry point for people who did not come to GAME OF THRONES the first time for whatever reason, partly because we’re fairly simple and straightforward in our approach. We have one p.o.v. character in Ser Duncan the Tall, and Egg gets a couple [points of view] throughout. But for the most part, we’re telling one story. And it allows people a little more clarity as to what we’re following.”

Parker also feels that the main character is an asset. “Dunk is just such an immediately likable human being. He’s earnest and he’s honest and he has a lot of self-doubt and anxieties, which hopefully people will recognize from their own journeys in their own lives that he’s just a kid with a silly dream who wants to go out and be a knight, but he doesn’t quite know how to achieve that. He maybe doesn’t have the skill set for this yet. He knows how daunting it’s going to be, how difficult the road is ahead.”

Dunk is a character Parker relates to personally. “I know that my journey in life has certainly been reflected in that – somebody who wasn’t given everything, who can fail, and it just won’t work out. There’s nothing to fall back on. I think, hopefully, [this] will attract enough attention in the beginning. Then we start having a little bit of fun in Westeros and return to the old GAME OF THRONES as George R.R. Martin always likes to do so well, that brutality butting right up against our happiness and hope.”

How does Parker describe the dynamics between Dunk and Egg? “The most important element to keep [from Martin’s novella] was, when they first meet each other, these two characters are actually quite lonely. I’m not sure they both completely recognize it as that. Obviously, Dunk has just lost his longtime mentor and pretty much the only person in the world who even knows he exists.

“And we find Egg in a different sort of loneliness by himself. He’s been a bit abandoned. He’s a bit aimless. And the two of them come together. I’m not sure that they see that in each other, but there’s something unconscious about the reason that they seek each other out.

“Really, this whole story is about family, and about the different nature of how families are made. This relationship is, at its core, a knight and a squire, but that’s also a mentor and mentee, a master and apprentice. But there’s also a father and son. I think Ser Arlan was very much like a father figure to Dunk, even though that was a complicated relationship. And I think Dunk is now very protective of Egg. They’re also like brothers. They really have a complicated relationship.

“And I think it all stems from Dunk not having any family to begin with, for being an orphan in Fleabottom. That’s sort of been his lifelong journey, seeking out those relationships. And Egg also had complicated relationships with his family and is seeking out that connection that was never given to him that a lot of us are lucky enough to have in our home units.”

Claffey relates that the bonds he forged with costar Ansell help them in playing the connection between Dunk and Egg. “I met Dexter right at the end of my auditioning process. We did a chemistry read together. It was the last little audition we had in [casting director] Lucy Bevan’s office in London. Obviously, I knew [Ansell was a] child actor. He was nine years old at the time. But the illusion of an immature kid dissipates very, very quickly. Dexter is such an impressive, mature little man.

“Me and Tanzyn were saying today, it feels like you’re working with an actor who’s been in the industry for fifty years. He’s incredibly mature. I was so impressed at how he was able to take notes from both Owen [Harris, who directed the first three episodes] and Ira, and I didn’t have to be that man in the middle to try and help with relaying information or anything like that. He’s got an incredibly bright, bright future ahead of him. We spent a lot of time together. We were really lucky to have about two months’ preparation before we got into shooting and spent a lot of time together at the arcades in Belfast.”

“A lot,” Ansell affirms.

“We did horse-riding every day in preparation,” Claffey continues, “and we did combat training. We got to do a lot of stuff with C.C. [Smiff], one of the stunt coordinators. And, not just in preparation for an onscreen relationship, I am so glad to be his friend now. I’m very, very close with him and his family, and they’re really good, lovely people.

“I think those two months could have been quite nerve-wracking. You don’t know what the relationship’s going to be like, and there’s so much importance placed on the relationship, and something just clicked in that chemistry read, and we haven’t looked back since, and I hope people will enjoy the relationship we were able to bring to the screen.”

Ansell expounds on the importance of offscreen camaraderie. “Like Peter was saying and we’ve said in so many interviews, the arcades were a big part of our relationship. We really connect through that. Like Ira was saying, we’re like brothers, not only like our characters, but in real life. From the first audition, we just clicked and we hang out, from going out to partying at my place.”

Claffey deadpans, “And then the casino and the nightclubs and everything. It’s awesome.”

Parker wants to know, “Who’s better at Mario Kart?”

This touches off fierce debate.

“I am,” Claffey asserts.

“It’s me,” Ansell insists.

“No, it’s not,” Claffey rebuts.

“It’s me,” Ansell repeats. “We always have this talk. It’s me.”

Claffey believes he has proof. “We’ll get video of that when we go back.”

Ansell is sure the video will prove he’s the victor. “Yeah, we’re going to get it. Okay. It’s me.”

Crawford, who plays puppeteer Tanselle, says that, like Claffey, she was initially concerned about living up to the material. “I was incredibly nervous to take on a character who is already written and people have had twenty years to think about. It’s quite intimidating, but it was a challenge that I really wanted to take, and I found it really fun to insert my own interpretation into Tanselle and try my best to service the book version of her, while staying true to how I see her.”

Tanselle interacts with relatively few other characters, so the press tour has been Crawford’s first opportunity to meet many of her costars. “Her role is so separate it doesn’t involve the violence and the cunning and the scheming, so she has her own creative world, and I think that makes it a relief to see her onscreen, to know that things may be calm for just a second, and then it gets back to the violence.”

How does Claffey see Dunk as an individual?

“Dunk obsesses over things and worries about things a lot and has some anxiety issues, and I’ve got a lot of experience with that stuff. When I first got the job and went to meet Owen and Ira, I was violently ill with anticipation and nervousness, and I suppose Dunk and I have that in common.

“But I really admire his moral compass and his black-and-white sense of chivalry, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot from the character himself. I feel that in a world as ruthless as Westeros and as vicious as it can be, where there’s a lot of backstabbing and betrayal, it’s quite a beautiful and endearing thing to see a character like Dunk, who’s trying to navigate it in a good moral way.”

The other actors are mostly portraying people of, to put it mildly, greater moral ambiguity. How do they see their characters?

Bennet, who plays Prince Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen, quips that he “never questioned” his character’s actions. “All very fair, all very justified.” More seriously, he goes on, “No, I don’t think honor matters to most Targaryens, and so I’m actually going to pass [this question] to maybe the second most honorable character. I’m going to go with Shaun Thomas.”

Thomas, who plays Ser Raymun “the Reluctant” Fossoway, offers, “I believe Raymun is very honorable, but I think his sense of survival actually is under the shackles of Steffon [Raymun’s relative, played by Edward Ashley] and, when he gets to actually move around Ashford with Dunk, he finds himself a little bit more free-flowing. He enjoys being around Dunk.”

Ings, who plays Ser Lyonel “the Laughing Storm” Baratheon, opines, “I think sometimes we almost misremember bits of George’s writing in the original GAME OF THRONES. You have this idea in your head of the bleakness because of these big set-piece moments where there’s death and carnage and chaos, and that’s what’s so fun about the writing, is that you never know who’s going to survive.

“But I think there is a little gene of hope that exists in all of it, and it’s really expanded upon here. Even in GAME OF THRONES, you’ve got this desire to see the Stark kids reunited. And I think here, in this one, it’s you want these two characters [Dunk and Egg] to survive. You want the other characters that they bump into and interact with to see that goodness in them.”

Spruell, who plays Prince Maekar Targaryen, adds, “And for the morally dubious, quite often the Targaryens feel confronted and challenged by the goodness of Dunk.”

Carvel, who plays Prince Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen, points out, “It does seem to be the question at the heart of the whole thing, isn’t it – whether it’s possible to do the right thing and whether there’s a space for that. And I think it’s Dunk, really, who’s asking that.

“Watching it again the other night, when we attended the premiere, it really struck he that he himself is asking all the way through whether it’s a naïve action to follow honor. Is he just kidding himself with this dream of knighthood? So, there’s possibility that cynicism will overwhelm him, and I find that very relatable in our own world. I think we’re probably all asking ourselves that all the time, whether you can find the moral courage to do the right thing, whether it feels like a wasted effort. That’s why it’s good television, it’s good storytelling, and I think a story that we have a real thirst for right now, a sort of darkening world. Thanks, Ira we need these stories. It’s good to be part of that.”

Parker considers this. “That sounded sarcastic for a second, but then I realized you meant it.”

“I meant it to sound sarcastic,” Carvel replies, “but the truth is I’m burying the lead inside sarcasm – I really mean it. If you want some more sarcasm, I’ll tell you about how Sam and I prepared by going to the arcades, if you like.”

Claffey sounds intrigued. “I would love to see you two in the arcades.”

Spruell laughs. “Oh, don’t be stupid. We’ll be in the pub, thank you.”

Parker says the biggest challenge of bringing A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS to the screen was, “We wanted to stay faithful to the book, honestly. Other than the Belfast rain, this was fun and straightforward. Once we had our tremendous cast in place, we just kept on rolling and I’m really proud of this now.”

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Article: Interview: Co-creator Ira Parker and actors Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansell, Finn Bennett, Bertie Carvel, Tanzyn Crawford, Daniel Ings, Sam Spruell, Shaun Thomas on GAME OF THRONES spin-off A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS

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