‘Game of Thrones’ Actor Reveals Season 8 Filming Schedule

Game of Thrones has just two episodes left in its seventh season, although fans still don’t have a definite date as to when the HBO drama’s eighth and final season will hit the air.

However, thanks to series star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, viewers can now get an idea of when the season will begin filming, with the actor telling Collider the stars return to Westeros in October.

While filming on the show previously ran from around July to December, give or take, the fact that winter is now here requires production to wait until weather better permits the show’s cold and snowy conditions. The same applied for the current season, which began filming in August.

Collider notes that while season seven contains just seven episodes rather than the usual 10, filming still took the same amount of time as previous seasons — around six months. As such, fans can expect filming on season eight, which will contain six episodes, to be completed around spring 2018. Factor in post-production and fans could be looking at a potential fall 2018 premiere unless HBO decides to hold the series until 2019.

As far as what GOT‘s final season will entail, Coster-Waldau is still in the dark.

“I knew what was going to happen for the first three seasons,” he said. “After that, it’s been a season at a time. You get the scripts a month before we start shooting, or six weeks, and then you know what’s going to happen that season. But, I don’t know what’s going to happen next season. We go back in October, so maybe in the next few weeks, we’ll get the scripts and I’ll find out. I’m very curious.”

Photo Credit: HBO