Daniel Portman
Some “Game of Thrones” (GoT) spoilers ahead.
The squire Podrick Payne, played by Scottish actor Daniel Portman, recently recounted being asked to do something he did not anticipate: sing an original folk song in last week’s “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” episode.
“They just put it in the script, and they didn’t tell me,” Portman told Esquire of the showrunners’ decision to make him sing “Jenny’s Song” aka “Jenny of Oldstones.” “I was terrified to be singing in front of all these people with this camera in my face.”
Portman, 27, is being praised by fans on Instagram, who described his singing voice as “beautiful” and “wonderful.” The actor said of his short but haunting song, believed by some to foreshadow upcoming scenarios: “Something like a billion people have seen the first episode. So, thinking about that many people seeing me singing was terrifying.”
On his unassuming character’s reputation for being an excellent lover, the actor recalled his early years of portraying the partly enigmatic role: “When you tell a 20-year-old actor, who’s sort of stumbled onto this big TV show, that all of a sudden you’re meant to be Casanova, people all over the world [will] wonder whether or not it’s true. I would be lying if I said that that hadn’t been fun.”
Portman, ultimately, is “hugely satisfied” with the conclusion of Podrick’s story, and described his final scene as “very weird.” —OLIVER PULUMBARIT