Sean Bean recalls filming the scrapped original Game of Thrones pilot

Entertainment Weekly

"I think there were some very good moments," he tells EW of the pilot that was considered so terrible it has never seen the light of day. "It was experimental in some ways. I think they were trying to portray what could be achieved: the kind of wonder and awe, the vast scale and complexity, all these war-faring tribes, the magic, the beauty, and the treachery. I think trying to get that into a pilot may have been difficult, and perhaps the story was lost a little. But nevertheless, it gave you a sense of what it could be. We were just going along with what was down there [on the page], but though they didn’t use the pilot in its entirety, they used certain moments, and I think the pilot served its purpose. As I said, it shows you what could be done and certainly what was done thereafter. It was developed, it got bigger and bigger and bigger and more exciting and breathtaking. It was just an idea, I think. It’s impossible to get an idea of the whole season of Game of Thrones into a pilot. We were very pleased with what we’ve done, and we really enjoyed being on it, and we knew there was something special in that early stage."

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