A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was conceived as a prequel to Game of Thrones and is set roughly a hundred years before the events of the main TV series, following the tale of Ser Duncan the Tall and the young , who initially keeps his true identity (Aegon V Targaryen) to himself. That detail, far from being minor or superficial, only fuels Dunk’s troubles, who eventually finds himself forced to fight for his life and his honor in a duel against other knights led by Prince Aerion Targaryen. If the role of the latter went to Finn Bennett, beneath the armor it was Zach Roberts who had to prove himself on the field. The stuntman has spoken more about those violent acrobatics during the fifth episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, lo stuntman di Aerion racconta com’è stata realizzata quella folle battaglia e cita Gli Incredibili
Thanks to what happened in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Zach Roberts earned an Emmy Award nomination in the category of Best Stunt Performance. The sequence in question is from the fifth episode, an extremely brutal and bloody moment that saw Dunk fighting for his life. As Aerion’s stuntman described, filming that scene required ten days of shooting after very intense rehearsals. “When we arrived on set that day, they knew exactly what the objective was for each day, and that gave us freedom,” he told The Wrap.
Ira Parker, the showrunner, insisted that the battle take place in the mud, adding further chaos and greater realism to the scene. And wearing that sharp-edged armor didn’t make the task any easier for Zach Roberts. “What may look fantastic can also hinder us. Originally, many of the points were metal. Bumping into someone or falling meant landing on metal points, so one had to ask: is there a way to coat them in rubber or trim them to make them safer, so we could retain that fantastical look without them actually posing a danger?”
In the end the points were coated in rubber, but another obstacle was Aerion’s long cloak: “We fought to shorten it. If you remember The Incredibles, Edna Mode says ‘No capes’ for a very specific reason. I might try to run forward and a horse could trample it.” The key for a stuntman is to assess every variable and find the best way to execute the action scenes safely: “Many people think stuntmen are crazy or take excessive risks, but it’s all very calculated because it has to be repeatable. So you learn the parameters. How did we make everything safe? If we communicate well, we limit the possibility of risks or incidents, even knowing they are possible. It’s not that you don’t feel alive or on edge at those moments. You simply enter a kind of trance in which you perceive everything that’s happening,” he concluded.
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