Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) is in an epic chase scene in "Game of Thrones" Season 6 episode 8. (Photo : YouTube/GoT)
"Game of Thrones" director Mark Mylod has admitted that he wanted the viewers to believe that Arya Stark is going to die after the mind-boggling chase in the most recent episode. Mylod has directed the show's two most recent episodes, "The Broken Man" and "No One," which showed the critical development of the return of the Hound (Rory McCann) and Arya Stark's (Maisie Williams) final flight.
"Arya is one of my favourite characters, and I wanted everyone watching the episode to think, 'Oh shit. Arya's going to die,'" the 60-year-old director told The Hollywood Reporter. "I wanted them dreading that, to be on the edge of the couch."
Revealing into the making of the epic foot chase between Waif and Arya, the British director said that the majority of the sequence was shot much before pre-production in Ginora, Spain. The filming was started with the shot when Arya tumbled down the street in the fruit market with all the oranges on the steps and was later put together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Mylod also declared that the crew got great support while shooting in Ginora. Although tourism is a major thing in the town, huge swaths of the most impressive parts of the old town were reportedly shut down to allow the show's team to access it and dress it as per the requirement of the scene.
Another major challenge of Mylod was to bring back the Hound, who was last seen in flattened on his back after a brutal battle against Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) and was considered dead until episode 7. Opening up about in another interview with Wall Street Journal, the director revealed that McCann knows his character "beautifully and instinctively" and needed very little guidance other than the constant reminder that the Hound now walks with a limp.
"He's an actor that just lives restraint, so it's always there," Mylod told the publication. "Particularly, that sense of pain is always behind the eyes."
Meanwhile, the title and descriptions for the final two episodes are already out, yet HBO has been careful not to give away too much in its synopses. Episode 9 will reportedly be the longest episode of the season so far, before episode 10 becomes the longest episode in the show's history. Watch "GoT" Season 6 episode 9 preview below:
