Hypable caught up with Brendan Bradley, “the nicest doucebag on the internet,” aka Renly from School of Thrones. Listen to hear what he has to say about those sweet dance moves, his other projects, and much more!

We sat down with actor Brendan Bradley from the comedy webseries School of Thrones for a conversation about his turn as Renly Baratheon – and whether or not it will return for a second season!

Listen to the full interview:

Bradley, a big Game of Thrones fan himself, also talks about his expectations for the upcoming third season, his favourite characters, and much more. His other webseries projects are also discussed, including Hipsterhood and Walk of Shame, and the upcoming The Dark Knight Retires.

You can listen to the full interview right here, and check out some highlights from the conversation below:

Hypable: How did you get involved with School of Thrones?

Brendan Bradley: I was directing Marisha Ray (Melisandre) in Walk of Shame, and we were rehearsing in her living room when her boyfriend Matthew Mercer, one of the creators, came downstairs and said: “We’re doing this thing about Game of Thrones, do you wanna be in it?” So it was the easiest audition process in the world.

What’s it like finding yourself in the middle of this webseries movement?

It’s a lot of fun, and for me what’s exciting about it is that it never stops. The web just continues to grow, so especially on a project like School of Thrones, it was so cool to be on set and meet tons of artists that I’d known for years, like Maxwell Glick (Stannis), or artists like Ashley Birch (Dany), who does Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’, that I’d never even heard of before. So I love how it’s just constantly expanding, not just in LA but all over the world – it really is an international movement of creating your own content. That’s what the internet is all about, that direct connectivity where everybody can get involved.

When you came to School of Thrones, did they ask you to play Renly from the beginning?

When they originally asked me, I had no idea who I was playing. I think Matt was able to get out the words, “We’re doing a Game of Thrones–” and I was like “yes, whatever it is, I’m in! I’ll play a White Walker, let’s do it.” But apparently (writer) Zach Grafton wanted me for Renly. His vision of Renly from the books is this all-American badass, the guy who should have the throne and he just happens to have this one part of his personal life that makes him not as applicable. And I couldn’t believe how involved I was with the project.

As a Game of Thrones fan, how did it feel to do this love letter to the show, while poking fun at it in a nice way?

I’ve been involved with a lot of different parodies and satires, which is a genre that I love. Because to me, it’s paying homage to the original property. We love the original show, we’re not making fun of it. When I first moved to LA I was involved with a webseries called The Legend of Neil, which is a spoof/parody of The Legend of Zelda. So I love taking projects and ideas from games and movies that are such a part of my childhood and what I love, and then getting to turn them on their head.

I’m sorry, I just had a Legend of Neil fangirl moment…

It’s a great series! It was one of the earliest webseries that came out, it’s by Sandeep Parikh and had Felicia Day and Tony Janning… and I think a lot like what made School of Thrones successful is that it didn’t take itself seriously. We were constantly like, “this doesn’t make any sense, let’s go with it!” Or they’d make fun of the fact that the background was made out of cardboard. It was all about fun, and spoofing a video game we all loved from childhood.

It’s been interesting, seeing the mixed response to School of Thrones… a lot of people love it, but then you have the purists that just don’t want Game of Thrones to be fun.

I love that response. I want there to be people that are angry about it. To me, nothing fuels something better than a polarized audience. I’d rather people absolutely love it or absolutely hate it. It’s to the people that are like ‘meh’ about it that I’m like “No! Care! Feel something!” because we all put a lot of work into it. The important part is to feel something. So keep hating if you’re hating, and keep loving if you love.

Tell us some of your favourite experiences while filming School of Thrones.

For me, the takeaway from the show was working with Maxwell Glick and Matthew Boehm (Loras). That dance sequence was literally… they turned to Max and I and said, “Okay guys. Aaand dance!” and we just danced to no music, to a crowd of people cheering us on, for five minutes straight. And we are not really dancers, so for us to just come up with some dance moves… I think I did a handstand at one point, I tried to spin on the floor as if I was breakdancing, and Max tap danced. So there’s a lot of footage floating out there that I think would make a great blooper reel.

Go to the second page to find out if/when ‘School of Thrones’ might return, and to read more about Bradley’s favourite ‘Game of Thrones’ characters, plus his other webseries projects.

It seems like most of you are open to going back for more. But what would it take to make a second season happen?

From what I’ve gathered, they’re being really smart about it. They don’t just wanna throw something out there – this was very thought out, they took their time, and they don’t wanna do it haphazardly. There’s been a lot of fan interaction with the original cast members of Game of Thrones and some of them have said, “Oh my gosh, this looks awesome, how can I be a part of it?” And so kind of assessing what the next step could be.

I think what we’ll end up seeing is that it’ll be developed while Game of Thrones is on. And Zach really crafted it so that a lot of what happens in School of Thrones didn’t happen in the series. So really, waiting to see what happens or doesn’t happen in this season will give us more fodder for the fans being like, “Oh, HBO missed this, I wonder if School of Thrones will pick it up!” It gives us an opportunity to respond to the series.

Are you worried about Renly’s fate?

I joked about this every time I was on set with Melisandre. We’ve constantly made jokes that she will kill me with a shadow baby. But I think in the School of Thrones universe what’s more playful about it is that instead of people dying, it’s just their reputation, it’s the ups and downs of cliques in high school. So I think what we’ll see is that Renly is still the big man on campus, but he’s gonna fall from his throne.

I imagine that Renly is going to be knocked down a peg or two, and that is going to be his version of death. But it’ll allow him to at least continue on the show – again, this is my wishful thinking because I don’t want them to kill me off! I don’t want them to transfer me or something. Or he goes away to college.

Has there been any talks about what future characters we might expect to see?

Arya is definitely one that everybody wants. But the one that I want is Syrio Forel. I want the coach of the fencing team to come in and be this Antonio Banderas, salsa, whatever. Because that’s one of my favourite characters in the entire series.

In Game of Thrones, who are your favourite characters?

I love Jaime, and Syrio Forel. And I feel like this is the boring answer, but I was pissed that Ned died. I mean, Ned was like my moral compass. No matter what everybody else did I was like, well, Ned’s got it figured out. I put my faith in him. And when he died, it took me a moment, I almost didn’t come back for season 2, cause I was just like, no. No. I refuse.

Another character that I’m in love with, and that’s again a total cliche, is Tyrion. Peter Dinklage is just such a remarkable actor, I’ve loved him since The Station Agent. He’s a phenomenal actor, and his Tyrion is just so alive. I tune in to see what Tyrion is gonna do next. I am just fascinated by where we’re gonna go next.

As a TV show fan, did you manage to avoid spoilers on the School of Thrones set?

It was pretty much impossible. Especially because you had such a mish-mash of die hard series lovers and book lovers, and people who had no idea, they’d not even watched the show. And it was funny to watch them, because they’d say their lines and everyone would laugh, and they’d have no idea why it was funny.

Let’s talk about Hipsterhood and how the season 2 Kickstarter is going.

It was very successful and raised everything they needed. And two days ago we finished filming the second season. I have a much bigger role – the season ended with them going to my dog’s birthday party, and I’m – surprise! – this super douchey guy from the bar (Jake). Season 2 really focuses on waking up the next morning from that party, and I’m not a much larger part of their life. I know what happened at the party the night before, we get more into my relationship with the lead guy as I’m trying to be this bro-tastic wingman.

I believe the season will start this summer or even late spring. I would aim for May or June on Blip.tv.

And what about some of your other projects?

There’s The Dark Knight Retires by Hunter Davis, which is basically a take on all the old people retiring but if it was Batman.

Every Friday night I also do a live show for The CW for Cult, where we interview the cast members and take Twitter questions, and reveal the hidden mysteries within the episodes. That’s on the Machinima Etc YouTube channel.

And then I have another show called The Walk of Shame, that came out earlier this year which I wrote and produced. It’s six little vignettes focused on girls waking up in a strange bed and they try to sneak out, and everything goes horribly wrong. That’s what I was working on with Marisha when I was cast in School of Thrones.

With all these new opportunities online, isn’t it a great time to be an actor?

Oh it’s the best time to be an actor, because with all these tools at your disposal, the only limitation is yourself. I mean, I still audition all the time and deal with rejection and it’s very hard and sad, but there is this other playground. And I’ve kind of developed this online persona that I don’t get to play in other projects. Online I get to play this fun, Labrador douchebag who I created with my series Squatters. And it’s great to connect with other artists and they’re like, “hey, do you wanna come be a douchebag in my project?”

So it’s great to not have to wait for permission to do your craft. That is the greatest gift you could give an actor.

Thank you to Brendan Bradley for taking the time to do this great interview! We’ll keep you updated as more information (hopefully) begins to be revealed about the return of School of Thrones!

Follow the actor on Twitter @BrendanABradley.