’Game of Thrones’ actor on why his illiterate character would make a good leader

Liam Cunningham—Oliver Pulumbarit

BANGKOK—Irish actor Liam Cunningham, roguishly charming at 55, dished a little about the coming seventh—and penultimate—season of the HBO fantasy series, “Game of Thrones,” which airs on July 17.

“I’ve been in shows where they reduced the budget because they have their audience already … HBO has not done that,” Cunningham, who has been playing Davos Seaworth since the second season, said in a roundtable interview with Asian writers.

“With these seven episodes, we have taken as long to shoot them as we have the [usual] 10 episodes. Each episode is more expensive—it has become more cinematic and the scale is bigger. Some of the sets I’ve seen are as big as Hollywood blockbusters that I had done. They’re beautiful,” he said.

Cunningham has appeared in films since the 1990s, including the Sean Connery-starrer “First Knight” and the werewolf actioner “Dog Soldiers.” He hinted that new alliances may be formed among the remaining characters against the onslaught of savage wight conquerors.

“What we have been leading up to now with the danger of the Night King and his huge army of White Walkers—obviously, there’s no family that’s going to defeat [them]. Political discussions have to take place. And that’s all I’m going to tell you!”

Asked by the Inquirer about fans’ response to his illiterate knight character, Cunningham said, “One of the things that the fans like [about Davos Seaworth] is that he’s a simple man. [What] I like about him is his poor background; he’s a small-time criminal. Davos has more nobility, decency and loyalty, which you expect from people with good education, who had money and privilege all their lives. They’re not the best people in the world—they’re spoiled; they’re chasing power.”

Liam Cunningham in “Game of Thrones”

He added that Davos and a few other characters who are unconsumed by hatred or revenge are necessary: “There’s so much moral ambiguity … you need [them] to say, ‘This is wrong.’ Otherwise, you’ll have anarchy!”

On the changes in the entertainment scene since his foray into acting, he said, “People have been saying that now is the ‘golden age of television.’ I have a theory about why television is so good at the moment, [and] why cinema is so bad! The quality of storytelling—if it’s not a superhero movie, the cinemas would be empty. There were hugely talented people who weren’t being employed by the cinema industry. Graphic novels … there’s a place
for them, I like them. But when it’s saturated with this stuff it’s boring.”

He elaborated on his “theory”: “What happened was, there were television executives who went, ‘Look at this field of talent! They’re sitting there, scratching their whatever. Why don’t we give them smaller budgets and see what they come up with!’

“Then, you’ve got stuff like ‘The Wire,’ ‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ this [wave] of beautifully written, grown-up television. And because it’s so good, it has made a lot of money. I think teenagers are going to the cinema, while adults are watching beautiful television. Maybe it’s a good thing. I hope it continues!”

The screen and stage thespian, a father of three, is grateful for the chance to act, even though he gets “embarrassed” when people ask him about the craft. “Even though I’ve been an actor for 25 years—I love acting—but I don’t like the idea of being an actor. It has a weird connotation to it … I’ll be acting until I find out what I want to do with my life. I hope I’m getting better—I’m trying to get better. But it’s up to other people to say that I am.”