On Game of Thrones, Joe Dempsie plays Gendry, but that wasn’t the first (or second) role he auditioned for!
Speaking to Left Lion, Dempsie discusses his work on the show, and how he came to play Gendry. He says, “I initially auditioned for the part of Jon Snow, and obviously didn’t get it.” Before he landed the role of Gendry, “I’d been for two or three different parts, and each time I didn’t get them I’d think; ‘I’m not getting these parts, they obviously think I’m rubbish.'”
But clearly they must have seen something in him they wanted to hold onto. As Dempsie explains, “they were just trying to figure out which piece of the jigsaw I was. In the first series I’m only in two episodes, and I remember thinking that I had none of the physical attributes of the character; I was supposed to be tall and muscular with thick black hair, and I was none of them. They said; ‘We’ll dye your hair, you go to the gym.'”
He still thought that they were going to recast the role once it became more prominent in the second season, remembering that while shooting season 1, “I was working out whether or not they were avoiding my face so that they could get another actor in for series two.”
Poor guy! But according to Dempsie, this is a pretty normal feeling for Game of Thrones actors. “Everyone in the first couple of weeks on Game of Thrones are so petrified by the scale of the thing that they are utterly convinced that halfway through a take they’re just going to say ‘Cut’ and the producers are going to say ‘We’ve made a terrible mistake, we’re sorry. Get off our set,'” He says. “It’s very normal to be scared for your job on Game of Thrones.”
Thanks to Game of Owns for the link to this brilliant interview!
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