The Squire Returns
Daniel Portman will return to Season 5 as Podrick Payne.
Amruta Lakhe
Daniel Portman is a true Game of Thrones fanboy. He treads cautiously as we begin to talk about the hugely-popular show: “How much do you know? I don’t want to be telling you things if you’re not ready to hear.” His concern is understandable, for Game of Thrones (GoT), the television adaptation of American author George RR Martin’s fantasy epic, A Song of Ice and Fire, is dotted with twists and turns at every turn of the page.
Millions around the world know Portman as Podrick Payne, the stuttering squire to the sinister and black-witted dwarf — and everyone’s favourite — Tyrion Lannister. The “odd little boy”, as Cersei Lannister describes him, spent almost an entire season serving wine and guffawing at Tyrion’s jokes. But Pod quickly rose in popularity when he risked his life to save Tyrion in the Battle of Blackwater in Season 2.
Portman, 23, who has been a part of the show for the last four seasons, will be a guest at Bangalore’s Comic Con 2015, to be held between April 3 and 5. He will be also joined by Natalia Tena, known for playing Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter series and, more recently, the wilding Osha in GoT.
The actor confesses that at 19, he was hooked from the very first season. “I auditioned for three parts, but all the characters died in the book. Then I read for Pod and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Belfast,” he recounts.
Portman’s still taken by surprise when he steps on a GoT set. “With multiple episodes being shot simultaneously, and hundreds of people on the set, the scale is magnificent,” he says, citing the shoot for the famous Red Wedding — one of the pivotal plot points in the book. “We shot in Croatia last year. There were close to 40 main characters on the set, up to 300 extras, acrobats and circus dancers. The set stretched on for half a mile. This sort of production value is unheard of,” he says.
His favourite characters in the series are Arya Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Varys and Jamie Lannister. For Pod, the game is getting more dangerous as the latest season sees him take off with Brienne of Tarth, a “lovely change for the character as well as the series”. The actor, who started working when he was 16 and has been part of the popular Scottish soap opera River City, has recently turned writer with his first film based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which will see him in the lead role.
Game of Thrones Season 5 will premiere in India on April 13.
Source:: Indian Express
