LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Ser Duncan is tall, but his story is small.<\/p>\n
And Ira Parker, showrunner of \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdom,\u201d<\/a> HBO’s latest entry to the \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d<\/a> universe that has charmed and disarmed viewers with its humble story of big, raw, aspiring knight Dunk and his tiny, cue ball-bald squire Egg, says it’s going to stay that way.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anything, I\u2019d say Season 2 might feel even smaller,\u201d Parker said. \u201cIt\u2019s not at all busy and everything. There\u2019s almost some loneliness creeping into this.\u201d<\/p>\n Parker spoke to The Associated Press from the island of Gran Canaria<\/a>, Spain, where he’s making the second season of the show based on George R.R. Martin’s series of novellas about the journeys and adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his sidekick whose nickname obscures his true identity.<\/p>\n After eight sprawling seasons of \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and two seasons of the almost-as-epic \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d<\/a> some worried about Westeros fatigue when \u201cA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms\u201d arrived in January. Instead, it was enthusiastically embraced by fans and plenty of newcomers. People seemed to want a world with no dragons or clashing kings, just an overgrown orphan without a last name trying to become somebody.<\/p>\n Everything about the show is scaled down. Season 1 had just six episodes averaging about 35 minutes, all of them centered entirely on Dunk and Egg.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is 100% a function of the underlying material,\u201d Parker said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have to stretch the story. We like building out the world and hanging out with our characters and having some fun in Westeros. But we don\u2019t want to have odd little side quests.\u201d<\/p>\n Smaller stories may be having a moment in elite TV. \u201cThe Pitt,\u201d<\/a> last year\u2019s best-drama Emmy<\/a> winner and a favorite to repeat the win, is set almost entirely in one part of one hospital. \u201cPluribus,\u201d the acclaimed Apple TV+ show that will give it Emmy competition this year, has a single main character.<\/p>\n \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d was also the mother of all Emmy contenders, getting more nominations during its full run than any drama ever.<\/p>\n This little brother of a show could get a little Emmy attention too when nominations are announced next month after a voting period that started Thursday. Its two stars, each as unlikely to find themselves in the spotlight as the characters they play, could both get acting nominations.<\/p>\n Peter Claffey, who plays Duncan, is a 6-foot-5, 29-year-old former professional rugby player who has had a steady stream of supporting roles since switching to acting in 2019 but nothing remotely like the title role in a franchise series.<\/p>\n When he got the Egg gig, Dexter Sol Ansell was plenty experienced for a 9-year-old. (He\u2019s 11 now.) But now he\u2019s become a memeable charmer as the little hairless scamp who\u2019s devoted to Dunk but sitting on big secrets.<\/p>\n They were both big, and lucky, finds for Parker and his team. Dexter was the first kid they looked at for Egg. And he and Claffey have established an off-screen rapport that translates to the screen.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve just been growing up together and they\u2019re coming up together and they really do talk to each other like brothers now,\u201d Parker said. \u201cThere\u2019s an aspect of that that you just can\u2019t create.\u201d<\/p>\n Parker himself has a humble background and isn’t used to being the center of such attention. He wrote for shows including \u201cThe Last Ship,\u201d \u201cBetter Things\u201d and, crucially, \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d before having this gig, and a sort of stardom, fall into his lap.<\/p>\n The sophomore year, however, is going a little roughly.<\/p>\n \u201cWorst experience of my life,\u201d Parker said, smiling but not entirely joking.<\/p>\n Season 2, based on Martin’s 2003 novella \u201cThe Sworn Sword,\u201d is set in a drought that they\u2019re supposed to be recreating in Spain. But Gran Canaria is getting historic downpours.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole story is about the drought,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole story is somebody damming the water to keep it from someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n But he spoke to AP after a day of sun, with hope for more.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can somehow manage to corral this thing back into its box of sunshiny-ness,\u201d he said, \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have something special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Ser Duncan is tall, but his story is small. And Ira Parker, showrunner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,1440,69552,229505,19,17,229504,69787,128],"class_list":["post-533417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-george-r-r-martin","tag-gran-canaria","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ser-duncan","tag-ser-duncan-the-tall","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116743157060142941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}