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Ed Sheeran’s Cameo, ‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 7 And 8 Spoilers Revealed At SXSW

By Jonna Marcaida Calagui
Published on: 07:40 PST, Mar 13, 2017

One thing is for sure: Ed Sheeran will appear in the upcoming Season 7 of Game of Thrones.

With a long time coming before the next season premiere, fans are obsessing over the things that might happen with the last two seasons of Game of Thrones. Thanks to this year’s South by Southwest, fans now know some pretty good spoilers on what to expect with GoT. The panel at SXSW was composed of the TV series’ creators and showrunners themselves — David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — together with Game of Thrones stars Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams, who play sisters Sansa and Arya Stark. Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes, GoT fans have just enough tidbits and spoilers to go on before Season 7 – and even the shortest series, Season 8 – comes in.

Season 7 spoilers: Ed Sheeran and the reason for his cameo role

Perhaps one of the biggest reveals of the night is the fact that Ed Sheeran will have a cameo role on Game of Thrones in the upcoming Season 7. Maisie Williams, who plays the role of the youngest Stark sister Arya, is the main reason why the GoT showrunners decided to cast the “Shape of You” singer, given that Maisie adores Ed Sheeran ever since she heard his music. The showrunners admitted that they have been trying to get the British singer on the show for years as a surprise to Maisie, and they finally did it this year. Ed Sheeran has already finished filming his cameo, so fans will get to see him on the show once Season 7 kicks off on HBO on July 16.

Ed Sheeran is not the only musician to grace Game of Thrones

Before the British singer-songwriter, other musicians like Sigur Ros, Mastodon, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, and Will Champion of Coldplay have appeared on GoT. Sheeran is the biggest name yet for the show, and with just two more seasons to go, there might not be any more time for Game of Thrones to cast other musicians for the cameo.

As for Ed Sheeran’s role, Nerdist provided some insight as to who he might be in Season 7. With Sheeran’s red hair, he could be the last remaining Tyrell, a Tully, a R’hllor’s red priest, or, ultimately, Arya Stark’s victim.

Pranks behind the scenes

Obviously, the showrunners of Game of Thrones love to pull pranks on the actors. Benioff and Weiss tried to make Jon Snow’s (Kit Harington) face mangled on the whole show. As Benioff puts it, the page they worked on described exactly what Jon’s mangled face would look like, with Weiss adding that they need to rough him up. Kit bought it until the showrunners started laughing.

“There’s a scene in the first season where he fights with a White Walker and it catches on fire and he burns his hand. So we wrote the script so that his upper lip would be all messed up and burnt off and we burned off all his hair. He’s got great hair and a great pout, so we described on the page exactly what his mangled face was going to look like forever. He was a good sport, but you could tell he was really sad.”

During another prank, Samwell Tarly (John Bradley-West) was given a ridiculous costume of Henry VIII that turned out to be a pinkish codpiece. Weiss told the costumers to just take pictures of Bradley for the sake of “evidence.”

“He was such a good sport, but his face in the costume-fitting pictures is my favorite image from the show. John’s face, long-suffering, trying to smile when he’s got a codpiece the size of a loaf of bread,” Weiss remarked.

A “Prince Charming wig” and lawyers

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) wanted to have his hair cut, which kind of put Benioff and Weiss in a panic. This is because most actors need to look almost the same between seasons. In annoyance, because he couldn’t cut his hair, Coster-Waldau sent a picture where he had his head shaved. The matter got pretty serious, with Benioff thinking that they’d have to get him a “prince charming wig” and HBO’s lawyers getting involved. The kicker: The photo was taken five years ago, so Jaime still has his head full of hair for the last two seasons.

The reason why Locke lived

Season 3 of Game of Thrones should have marked the end of Locke (Noah Taylor). Weiss explained that Nikolaj was supposed to throw Noah into the bear pit during the scene and that he will be then mauled by a bear. It didn’t happen though because Noah is “too much fun to waste” so Weiss decided that he should stay alive.

“It hasn’t happened that often,” he added.

Season 8 spoilers: there are only six episodes to watch

Sadly, Benioff and Weiss decided to just make the last season of Game of Thrones just six episodes long – the shortest ever in the franchise. Benioff confirmed that there’s already a 140-page outline for Season 8, and Dave Hill will write the premiere. Bryan Cogman will get to write Episode 2, and the rest will be written by him and Weiss.

Game of Thrones Season 8 has some pretty vicious battles

Not to worry, though. Avid fans of GoT are not going to lack some good action with the vicious battles in Season 8.

Season 8 locations worldwide revealed – some have fallen off, literally

It’s not much of a spoiler, but Benioff and Weiss confirmed four of the many shooting locations that they will use for Season 8. These would be Croatia, Iceland, Northern Ireland, and Spain – places viewers are all familiar with where various seasons had been filmed before. As for the fallen sets, fans have the famous stone arch of Malta that fell into the sea after a hurricane, a rock slide that crushed Castle Black and the 300-foot green screen that was blown over in Spain.

What do you think of these spoilers? How about your thoughts on Ed Sheeran’s acting? Don’t be too shy to sound your opinions in the comment section below.

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia]

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