Original Night King Actor Thinks Character's Game of Thrones Death Was "Brilliant"

While large portions of viewing audiences might have voiced various disappointments with the ways in which Game of Thrones concluded, most of the series' cast and crew expressed their support of its twists and turns, including the actor who originally played the Night King in the series, Richard Brake. The actor played the villain in Season Four and Five of the series, before Vladimir Furdik took on the role beginning in Season Six, but Brake still enjoyed seeing the villain meet his demise at the hands of Arya Stark, despite some fans thinking Jon Snow was destined to confront the character.

"I did watch the end of the season," Brake confirmed with Consequence of Sound. "I didn't know ahead of time what was gonna happen, but I love the way my character ended up dying because Arya was always my favorite. I wasn't surprised. I thought it was a brilliant development, actually."

The Night King character loomed large in the early seasons of the series, but it wasn't until Season Four that the threat of the character became substantial. Given the popularity of the series not only at the time, but how much it grew over the years, some would be surprised that Brake would leave the series behind, yet he still stands by his decisions to pursue other projects.

"It was ultimately a scheduling issue," the actor confirmed. "I was doing another series — it was Kurt Sutter's series The Bastard Executioner — which, unfortunately, didn't do very well. But, it's very difficult to schedule around Game of Thrones. Vlad is wonderful, who took over the role, and he's a stuntman primarily, so it kind of made some sense anyway for them to do that, so that was ultimately the reason."

He added, "A lot of people ask, 'Are you sad about that?' I'm not even remotely sad because I would've never been able to do all this work that I've done subsequently. And I'm almost certain I wouldn't have been able to do 3 From Hell, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done 31. So, there's quite a few things I would never have wanted to miss had I continued the role. And I always say that I'm lucky I got to be in one of my favorite episodes, 'Hardhome', so that was a real thing."

All seasons of Game of Thrones are now streaming on HBO. Brake can next be seen in Rob Zombie's 3 From Hell.

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