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Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal Did An AMA, Talks About Tonight’s Big Fight (Spoiler Free)

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It’s been a long week, but huzzah, Game of Thrones night is upon us once more. As one might expect, actor Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell) has been busy answering questions about tonight’s hotly anticipated episode. We’ve got some choice quotes from an interview with Today Online, as well as from Pascal’s recent Reddit AMA. Did you know that one of his first gigs was an episode of Buffy? Because I did not.

Speaking with Today, Pascal said that fans “will not be disappointed” with the big showdown.

According to Pascal, filming the battle scene was a “very harrowing experience” but also “one of the most exciting in my life”. Said the 39-year-old said: “We were shooting outside, it’s a pretty large battle and we all wanted to get it right. Nobody got hurt. There were no injuries sustained. There was no heat exhaustion. Everyone was working really hard together and having a great time.”

And no, the scenes weren’t specially shot to make The Mountain look suitably imposing. “I can definitely say there are zero camera tricks used since the actor is six foot nine and 420 pounds of muscle,” Pascal said. “He (was at) a strong man competition held in China, he came back with the title of third strongest man in the world. Physically, it was intimidating, but he’s a very kind person and we got along beautifully.”

Over at Reddit, Pascal had a spoiler-free discussion about everything from show details to personal tidbits (dude has solid taste in science fiction). The Game of Thrones chat covered a lot of territory, so we’ll stick to some highlights relating to recent events in the show. First up is a reply to Redditor temphey, who asked whether there was a scene that was particularly difficult for Pascal to film.

I think that my first day onset was actually a pretty big scene, this was my scene in Tyrion’s cell with Peter Dinklage, and it’s a beautifully written scene but it was really important to me to get it right. And I was really nervous. And it turned out not to be a difficult scene to shoot because Peter was so amazing to work with and he’s such a generous actor. And our director Alik Sakharov, he was the director of that episode, and he’s one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with, so that and the amazing writing turned it into (to this day) one of the best workdays I’ve ever had.

And of course, as far as what is upon us in the next episode, The Viper versus the Mountain, was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.

On the subject of the Mountain, AaronC14 wanted to know if there’d been any special training required for tonight’s fight.

…the production of Game of Thrones actually put me in some pre-training before I went to Europe to start shooting. I was put intro some classes with a master of Wushu, an acrobatic martial art, and they put me with a master, his name is Master Hu, and he has a studio in Los Angeles where he sort of basically showed me the basics and taught me how to fight with a spear and twist my body around and move in ways I never thought possible. And this was a guy who actually did Shaolin movies with Jet Li very early in Jet Li’s career, and fought alongside him as his sidekick, so he was the real deal.

Then once I got to Europe and started shooting, there were really intensive fight rehearsals with me and the stunt team that was headed by C.C. Smiff, and other actors, and we did a lot of fight choreography and rehearsals. The Oberyn style of fighting is inspired by Wushu.

As Oberyn’s both a lover and a fighter, FoxyOHoolihan was brave enough to ask the question everyone else was probably dancing around: “How do you feel knowing you’ve caused countless men and women alike to reconsider their sexual orientation, you beautiful beast?”

That makes me feel wonderful. I think that that’s key to Oberyn. That he is the kind of person that is attractive and sort of breaks boundaries. He doesn’t play by the rules, so the fact that anyone would be attracted to him, no matter what their sexual orientation is, is very in line with the kind of character that he is. So I think that’s great.

And yes, he knows about r/gayforoberyn. Oh, internet.

Commenters, please keep discussion spoiler-free. If you want to talk about A Song of Ice and Fire, head to our open book spoiler thread. Thanks!

Previously in Game of Thrones

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