Shocking behind-the-scenes facts about 'Game of Thrones'

To say 'Game of Thrones' was simply a success doesn't quite do the series justice. It was one of the most illegally downloaded, expensive, far-reaching, and Emmy-winning series to have ever hit our screens. And now we have a highly successful prequel dominating streaming services: 'House of the Dragon.'

Image: HBO

Other than the incredible talent you see on screen, perhaps the most astounding facts about this show come from behind the scenes. They are about the truly astonishing lengths the production crew went through to make this show so successful.

There were two units that worked each season from July to December. They were called the 'Wolf' and the 'Dragon' and filmed simultaneously in several countries. In the sixth season a third unit was added, the 'White Walker.'

Over the course of its eight seasons, the series was filmed in 10 different countries. Over the eight seasons, 19,722 travel documents were issued.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explained that they worked non-stop, all year long during the production of the series. They would write an outline for each season, then write the actual scripts while directing.

Shooting the show lasts the entire year and what they film is like a ten-hour movie. Season 5 alone was shot in five countries, on 151 sets, for 240 days, with 166 cast members, over 1,000 crew members, and over 5,000 extras.

The show became so popular that the script writers had to find a way to avoid 'spoilers'. They hated the idea of the storyline being leaked so much that they only allowed the cast to read the script from secured iPads. Ian Glen, who plays Jorah Mormont, told BBC Radio 5 about this strategy.

George R.R. Martin had received quite a few proposals for his (still unfinished) book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire' to be made into a movie. But he turned them all down. He did not see the work as a good vehicle for a movie.

The author's books were indeed very long. So long, in fact, that they were almost impossible to adapt to film. The author allegedly did that on purpose. In addition, George R.R. Martin refused to adapt parts or plot ideas from the books to the series.

When the showrunners Benioff and D.B. Weiss told George R.R. Martin that they wanted to make a series out of his work, he asked them one question. Who is John Snow's mother?
Apparently, their answer satisfied the author, and the rights to his book were sold. That is when the series was put into production.

The first pilot episode that HBO produced was not well received. In fact, it was almost entirely redone. For example, we could see in the pilot that Jamie and Cersei Lannister were not siblings (or at least it was not clear).

Other differences in the pilot were that the wedding night between Daenerys and Khal Drogo was not forced and that it was actually consummated by mutual agreement. The White Walkers had their own language and spoke to each other.

Several scenes were also eliminated, such as the one in which Jon Arryn is seen dying, a flashback of the Mad King, and even Bran fighting with Tommen.

In the famously unaired pilot, Tamzin Merchant played Daenerys Targaryen. While George R.R. Martin said of her performance that it was "wonderful," she wasn't convinced of all the steamy scenes and left.

Gillian Anderson also turned down a character in this series. She had two young children at the time and didn't feel much like it. The character was rumored to be Cersei Lannister.

Interestingly, Elizabeth Olsen also auditioned to be Daenerys Targaryen. Her audition did not go as planned, however, and she didn't even get a callback. Later she would say 'it was awful' in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

In that unaired pilot, George R.R. Martin himself made a cameo as a pentoshi nobleman at the wedding of Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen. It's a shame the pilot was dropped.

Talking of Daenerys and Drogo, no one can forget the gruesome scene where she ate a stallion's heart. In reality, that 'heart' was a kind of candy, jelly, solidified jam, and with a lot of "sauce," Emilia Clarke later claimed it tasted like chlorine and raw pasta. Either way, its appearance was not very attractive, and its taste was just as bad. The fact she had to eat about 28 of them (for different takes) makes it understandable that the actress did not have to act too hard in the vomiting scene.

By all accounts, Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), in that same scene, got soaked in so much fake blood that she got stuck to a toilet seat during a break. She had trouble getting loose and making it back to the set on time.

It took over two months for Gavin Jones to make the famous Iron Throne. But with something as critical to the story as it was, it couldn’t be rushed. Although it is not quite as grand as described in the books, Littlefinger is able to put fans at ease in one episode, as he explains the description of the throne is, indeed, a myth.

According to certain sources, the Battle of the B*****s was highly influenced by the American Civil War.

Kit Harington broke his ankle in 2012 when he got locked out of his London apartment and fell while trying to break in. He had to use doubles for his scenes and apparently felt so guilty about it that he apologized to the producers by buying them a lot of liquor.

Many Essos and King's Landing scenes were shot in Malta in the first season. However, they did not return there for the subsequent seasons because they had caused irreparable damage to a valuable fossil.

From the start of season four, the SFX teams used 24,421 pounds of silicone (for prosthetics) and 1,102 pounds of Coffee Mate (for pyrotechnics). The longest prosthetics applications were for the Children of the Forest and the Mountain, which took seven hours.

Season 8 of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ was its deadliest season of all time, with a total of around 3,523 deaths compared to just 59 in the first season. In the show’s final season, the largest number of deaths was in the Battle of Winterfell, It accounted for significantly more deaths than the first seven seasons combined. But if you look at the series as a whole, there are only a meager four episodes with no deaths at all.