‘Game of Thrones’: Gendry Actor Joe Dempsie Teases Major Cersei Connection

Joe Dempsie, the actor behind Gendry in Game of Thrones, has added fuel to the fire of a wild fan theory about his parentage.

Gendry is a curious character in Game of Thrones, but fans were overjoyed when he returned last season. The adventurous blacksmith is widely accepted as the bastard son of King Robert Baratheon, but in a recent interview with Men’s Health, Dempsie alluded a prominent theory about who Gendry’s mother might be.

“I just wanted answers about my character. I was the most curious as to what we might find out about Gendry’s parentage,” Dempsie said of Game of Thrones’ upcoming season. “Obviously, we know that he was the bastard of Robert Baratheon, but who might his mover have been?”

“There’s a line in season one, and it’s a first scene you ever see of Gendry, where he’s looking to Ned and he’s asked about his mother, and he says he doesn’t remember much about her at all, other than the fact that she had yellow hair and she would sing to him,” he continued.

“It’s one of those things where you go, ‘Do they usually write lines that don’t mean anything, or lines that seem to have significance that [are] never addressed again?’ I was kind of intrigued to see what that might mean, and what impact that might have on Gendry’s clout politically,” he said.

Fans perked up at this strange quote, which seems to find Dempsie dancing around his point. Many have considered the idea that Gendry is actually Robert’s true-born son with Cersei Lannister, as Cersei told the Starks in Season 1, she had one child by Robert before the rest were fathered by Jaime.

Cersei claimed that that “black-haired beauty” was stillborn, though some fans theorize that that might be her cover story. Instead, it is possible Cersei disposed of the child in her own sinster way, and he ended up living on the street as Gendry.

This would explain Dempsie’s mention of “political clout,” as a true-born son of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister would have claim to the Iron Throne itself, or at least the castle of Storm’s End.

Of course, many wrote the whole quote off as a misdirect. The cast and crew of Game of Thrones are forbidden from revealing anything to the press, and Dempsie’s quote may come to mean very little in the jam-packed final season. Dempsie admitted that it is scary and bittersweet to see the show come to an end.

“[I’m feeling] joy and, I guess, relief at the fact that they managed to bring this show to such a fantastic close,” he said. “That’s a daunting prospect for anyone… I think that if the show ended in the way that a lot of people online predicted, then that might be a bit of an anticlimax.”

“There may be people that aren’t too keen on the ending. But I really think that it’s one that will stand the test of time,” he added.

Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres on Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.