‘Game of Thrones’ Actor Isaac Hempstead Wright Says Final Season Will ‘Hit Hard’

Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays Bran on HBO‘s Game of Thrones, is already anticipating a rough transition once the series is out of his life for good. The young actor is on set filming the final season, which will be comprised of only six episodes, and likely won’t premiere until some time in 2019.

Hempstead Wright sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to chat about the impending end of the series he’s worked on since he was 12 years old. He told reporters that he’s resigned to the fact that a show as big as Game of Thrones will draw some criticism from fans, who will never accept the end to truly be the end.

“When it comes to a conclusion, this is the end. Nothing more is coming, and the certainty of it being over will definitely bother people,” he said.

He added that the intertwining of various storylines on the sprawling drama has fueled the negative reactions by some to season 7.

“I think the fact that these characters are all so much closer together now really added to the feeling that we were at the beginning of the finale,” he said, later adding “…we spent just as much time and just as much money on fewer episodes. Naturally, we were able to give far more attention. I think it ends up being more fast-paced. When you’re heading into a finale, you don’t want to have any unnecessary episodes.”

“But in general,” he said. “I don’t think there were any glaring plot holes. I think it was a pretty incredible season.” Hempstead Wright is confident that season 8 will be great as well.

Reporters asked him if his absence from season 5 prepared him at all for the permanent farewell from the show coming up.

“I still don’t think I know what it’s going to feel like,” he said, “because that whole season, I knew I was going to be coming back… But that’s not going to happen now that I’ve made it to season eight. It’s not like I’ll be dying on the show while it goes on for another three seasons, watching all my pals while I’m not there. It means that when we’re done, we’re done… When it actually finishes, it’s going to hit hard.”

As for how he and the rest of the cast and crew will deal with that conclusion, he seemed to be preparing for the worst.

“There will be so many glamorous [events] and all of these fireworks as we celebrate the ending of the show — and then all of the sudden, it will be nothing. And it will be sad.”