A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO's prequel to Game of Thrones, has picked up nine nominations at the 2026 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. Winners will be announced Sept. 14 at Los Angeles' Peacock Theater.
Showrunner Ira Parker told The Hollywood Reporter in July that his reaction was relief, "to know that it wasn't just all an illusion, that [A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms] did connect with people." He joked that "if your lead character takes a violent s--t onscreen in the first five minutes, you pretty much preclude your series from awards consideration."
"We consider it recognition for the whole show and, especially, for our crew in Belfast, who deserve it the most," Parker continued. "We had such an incredible crew of actors, and we were a first-season show."
Game of Thrones itself won 59 Emmys across its eight-season run from 2011 to 2019.
What A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Is About
Based on George R.R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, the series follows lowborn hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and the young Prince Aegon V Targaryen (Dexter Sol Ansell), who grows up to become the great-grandfather of Daenerys Targaryen, the character played by Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones. Where Game of Thrones' first season spanned storylines across two continents, this show's debut season centered entirely on a three-day tournament at the rural Ashford Meadow.
Parker called the tighter focus "a pleasure and a curse." In a January interview with Esquire, he said production was "still hard" because the cast is far smaller than on Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, meaning "you can't just go off to some other story and wait for that to ramp up everything." As he put it, "You're cutting from Dunk to Dunk, so you better make sure you have all your s--t straight."
HBO has renewed the series for a second season. "We've been shooting [season two] every day for the last two weeks," Parker said. "We'll see how the audience responds and we'll go from there, but I love these characters and I love these stories so much." He said the simpler storytelling is "refreshing" but acknowledged "people can get just as sick of this sort of thing and want something bigger," adding, "That's probably how we got Game of Thrones to begin with. Everything was a little quieter, following one person and one POV. Then, all of a sudden, you have all these sprawling stories that no one can keep track of."
How Game of Thrones Began
Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novel series launched in 1996. He has credited the popularity of the 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings films with growing audiences' appetite for well-made fantasy, but he rejected pitches to condense his sprawling books into a film. In the mid-2000s his agent sent the novels to writer David Benioff, who had writing partner Dan Weiss read them too. The pair decided only a television series could do the books justice.
According to James Hibberd's 2020 oral history Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, Martin tested the pair in their first meeting by asking, based on clues in the books, who they thought Jon Snow's mother was. "We were weirdly prepared for that question," Benioff recalled.
A Rocky Path to HBO
Benioff and Weiss wanted HBO to make the show. Carolyn Strauss, the network's president of programming at the time, told Hibberd, "There were a fair number of reasons not to do it. There are many ways a fantasy series can go south." It took months to secure the book rights, and after Strauss left HBO in 2008, Benioff and Weiss had to re-pitch to new programming president Michael Lombardo, downplaying how big the show would eventually get. "I'm not sure I ever really believed that," Lombardo said of their "contained" pitch. "We knew it was a gamble." The pilot was greenlit in November 2008.
The Pilot That Had to Be Reshot
Game of Thrones premiered on April 17, 2011, but that wasn't the original $10 million pilot. That version, directed by Tom McCarthy, worried Lombardo over its lack of scope: "We could have shot this in Burbank." On the podcast Scriptnotes in 2016, Weiss called watching friends' reactions to the original pilot "one of the most painful experiences of my life," while Benioff noted viewers hadn't realized Jaime and Cersei Lannister were siblings, calling it "a major, major plot point that we had somehow failed to establish."
Then-HBO co-president Richard Plepler ordered a new pilot as part of a 10-episode order, filmed in July 2010 and directed by Tim Van Patten. Writer Craig Mazin told Weiss and Benioff afterward, "That's the biggest rescue in Hollywood history," adding they had turned "a complete piece of shit into something brilliant." McCarthy later told ABC News that he was already committed to his film Win Win and didn't return for reshoots, noting the show "was hugely successful without me."
Casting Choices and Close Calls
Kit Harington won the role of Jon Snow over actors including Alfie Allen, Joe Dempsie and Iwan Rheon, who all landed other parts. Sam Claflin, who auditioned for both Jon Snow and Viserys Targaryen, said "we all auditioned for it," while Nicholas Hoult said he showed up with a "ponytail and a very patchy fake tan" from filming Clash of the Titans.
Peter Dinklage initially avoided fantasy roles but agreed to read the Game of Thrones pilot out of respect for Benioff and friendship with Benioff's wife, Amanda Peet. He took the part of Tyrion Lannister, at first refusing a beard before relenting, and won four Emmys for the role. Dinklage encouraged friend Lena Headey to audition for Tyrion's sister Cersei, a role fans speculate was once offered to Gillian Anderson. Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was cast as Jaime Lannister despite some book readers objecting that he didn't look right.
Tamzin Merchant was originally cast as Daenerys Targaryen and shot the first pilot, but Lombardo said her scenes with Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo, "didn't work." Merchant told Entertainment Weekly in 2021 that she had tried to back out of the role during contract negotiations before being persuaded to stay, and credited Emilia Clarke, who ultimately took the part, with making the role "iconic."
Jack Gleeson was cast as Prince Joffrey and John Bradley as Samwell Tarly partly because Benioff and Weiss didn't want to cancel on actors who had traveled to audition; Bradley's train from Manchester was delayed, and Weiss recalled he "ran from the station" and climbed three flights of stairs after the elevator broke, costing another actor the role.
Maisie Williams was 12 when she sent in an audition tape for Arya Stark, and Sophie Turner was 13 when she tried out for Sansa Stark, beating out finalist Izzy Meikle-Small. Turner and Williams later got matching "07.08.09" tattoos marking the day they were cast. Isaac Hempstead Wright was 10 when he was cast as Bran Stark. Jennifer Ehle played Catelyn Stark in the original pilot before stepping aside for Michelle Fairley. Sean Bean was cast as Ned Stark, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2019 he didn't yet grasp "how enormous and massive this series would become."
Deaths That Shocked Fans
Bean recalled that filming Ned Stark's beheading in Malta involved mistakes with the prop head that made the crew laugh: "It was awful what's happening, and you start giggling and laughing... it breaks the ice a bit."
Martin told Hibberd that Robb Stark's death was always planned as an early major casualty in his books, calling the process of writing it "like murdering two of your children." Richard Madden, who played Robb, said he spoiled his own character's fate by Googling it. Oona Chaplin, who played Robb's bride Talisa and was added to the Red Wedding massacre for the show, said she reacted to the script with, "F--k, everyone dies!" Madden called filming the 2013 episode "a really difficult day for everyone. There was lots of tears from many people, including myself."
Lily Allen turned down playing Yara Greyjoy, sister to a character played by her real brother Alfie Allen, telling Vulture in 2014 she felt uncomfortable with a scene requiring physical contact. Gemma Whelan took the role instead and recalled being warned by a producer after she mentioned the casting on her CV before it was announced.
When Jon Snow was stabbed by his Night's Watch brothers at the end of season five, Harington said no one on set was allowed to say "Jon Snow," with the actor referred to only as "LC" to protect the season six resurrection twist. "I'm glad that people were upset that he died," Harington said.
Ending the Story and Its Cost
After the show ran out of Martin's published material following season five, with his novel The Winds of Winter still unfinished, Weiss told Deadline in 2016 the team wanted to "leave while all the people watching this show are really into it." Benioff said they aimed to tell "one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end" rather than padding it out.
Across 73 episodes, Game of Thrones cost an average of $100 million per season, with per-episode costs rising from $6 million in its first season to $15 million in its eighth, according to a recent Variety report. Benioff credited "horse mistress" Camilla Naprous and director Miguel Sapochnik for pulling off large-scale sequences like the Battle of the Bastards, which used 500 extras made to look like 8,000.
