Gethin Anthony talks Renly, Sutu, and suits of armor ...

Since leaving Oxford two years ago, he's already got BBC, HBO, and numerous theater projects under his belt: Gethin Anthony is an actor on the rise. His portrayal of Renly Baratheon on Game of Thrones, a younger brother with a big secret and his eye on the throne, has gotten attention from all quarters. Additionally, he plays Sutu on the Doctor Who spin-off The Minister of Chance – the self-described 'radiophonic drama' featuring the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann), and Paul Darrow. Gethin graciously took some time to talk with us at Shadowlocked about Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, and the future of internet technology and drama.

Game of Thrones is a fantastic show. Did you read the books first?

Not initially. I was aware that this thing was going on – there were a lot of meetings and interviews here in London. By the time it got down to reading for Renly I had actually read the books.They introduced him as this great character who has a big secret, and by that point I'd read the books and knew that he was an interesting character who is always on the fringes of power, and I thought it would be quite exciting to play him. It's only through the process of the TV show that I got introduced to the books but I'm glad that it came about, because they are fantastic.

Overall, the show stays remarkably true to the books, with a notable exception: Renly's relationship with Loras Tyrell. In the books it was more behind-the-scenes. Why do you think they changed it for the show?

That's a question I've been asked before, and it is an interesting one. Because the book is told from the point of view of particular characters, there are a lot of relationships that you don't see, because they are behind closed doors. But in a television series they don't have those constraints – they tell the story in a different way. And what you get from that is a lot more of those 'behind closed doors' moments with the characters – it gives you is all the relationships that make decisions happen. Loras Tyrell has a really close relationship with Renly, and that is powerful because they are affectionate together, and they have private moments together. And you can see that in the television series. In the books you only get the public view of Renly, and that is interesting, to see the interactions of some of the other characters as well.

I think, for us, we had to make sense of the characters for ourselves. But what the writers have done so fantastically is to really bring out the human drama that makes stuff happen. This is a kingdom that is led by a poisoned council of politicians, and a King who is losing his way. You don't just get the big actions, wars and stuff like that. You get the discussions, and the way the characters lean on each other to make it happen. I have to say, that is in the books, a lot of it as well, but I think what David (Benioff) and Dan (Weiss) are so excited about. With regards to the TV show, it's just a different way of telling the same story. They've done such a wonderful job, especially for a series that has such a dedicated fan base, that to stay true to the story, I think they've done a great job.

Yes, it's quite exciting that they've been able to use so much of the material; although I'm quite looking forward to seeing just how big A Dance with Dragons is. I hear they are getting longer and longer as they go on! But I think it's exciting; whenever you get a TV drama that they can create an entire world. It's a paradigm of history, it's not set in the history we know, it's totally fictional. I mean, if you have a story that is set in Henry VII's court, you're going to know a lot of the stories and take a lot for granted. A lot of people would know Anne Boleyn, and her significance; but with this they have to create everything, all the characters and to explain, and contextualize everything. And it's a real feat! What they've done amazingly is they've somehow managed to fit it all in to 10 hours of television.

The sets are amazing!

That's one of the great things – you get on set and everything is just there for you. You don't have to act, you just get there and feel the part. The costumes hold you in a certain way; Gemma (Jackson) did an incredible job of creating the world, and Michele (Clapton) with the costumes. Everything about it was just really visceral. It was really exciting to be in that world.

The whole production base is in Belfast, in Northern Ireland. There's a fantastic area in the city by the docks called the Titanic Court, with a big hall - the Paint Hall - where these big ships went to be painted. And now that this huge structure isn't being used for that, obviously, it's used for television programs and films. I think Your Highness may have used it as well. They use this massive warehouse, the size of a sound studio, that's where a lot of the interiors were done. Then right out of Belfast you have this incredible landscape with different scenery, different types of green woodlands, open meadows, and wonderful vistas. So they used a lot of the surrounding area of Belfast as the country. For instance, the Hand's Tourney was very near – about a half-hour's drive from Belfast. But they also used Malta, for a lot of the stuff that happens in Daenerys' storyline; the horse tribes filmed in and around Malta, and some of the exteriors in King's Landing as well.

How did you find wearing a suit of armor?

I didn't get to wear a suit of armor – I'm hoping to get to wear one! And if I don't I'm going to get upset. I mean it's one of those things – in the book, Renly gets to fight in the joust, he gets to wear really cool armor, but there just wasn't time to get every last detail in. But I'm hoping, I'm crossing my fingers because I'd love to wear a suit of armor!

Filming so close to a major city – did you have any problems with fans, coming to the site or anything?

Actually, we had a really positive experience with fans who were invited to come to the set. George R. R. Martin had a huge following for his novels, and has built up through blogs and different media a group called the Brotherhood Without Banners. And they hold a yearly moot, which is their meeting. So basically they came to Belfast for one, a mini-convention, about fifty people, and they invited some of the cast to come down and join them. And it was great, because it was meeting people in a really informal context. But as far as people just walking up, we haven't seen much of that. You've got some big actors in there that people recognize, I'm sure that they said hi to people on the street, but it wasn't like that.

So you've been involved with two cultural phenomena recently, Game of Thrones and Minister of Chance. Minister of Chance puts you in the sci-fi spectrum as well as fantasy. Were you a Doctor Who fan as well?

I grew up on Sylvester McCoy when I was really young. I had that kind of touchstone. I was really interested to see the series come back with Christopher Eccleston, and David Tennant, and now Matt Smith's incarnation. So I've been aware of it, more as a kid and less so now, but very interested in the stories they manage to create. When Minister of Chance came up it was really interesting because I didn't know much about how it all sort of came out of Doctor Who, but it was fascinating to see what they were going to do.

Having grown up with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, what was it like then, working with him on Minister of Chance?

I didn't actually get to meet him in the studio! You know how these things work – certain actors who aren't in the same episode, our recording dates never quite matched up. I took great pride out of the fact that I saw him wearing a Minister of Chance t-shirt on a publicity photo, and I thought, “well, I have one of those!” and at least we have that shirt in common! It was a shame, actually, because it would have been nice – but I'm sure at some point that might be possible.

It's my understanding that Minister of Chance is a 'buy it and we'll make more' deal – continuing the story is dependent on it's success and reception by fans. Do you think that this is a way forward, for shows to be commissioned and delivered in the future?

Well, the reality is that we have a technological sort of situation now where you can get instant feedback for anything you make and put out there. You can produce small-budget things and get them out on the internet and have a distribution that wasn't possible even fifteen years ago. There are so many platforms where you can publish work. So I think it's an interesting model because essentially it's kind of 'do or die'. It's that thing of saying, “We've made this great thing that we are really proud of” and the most instant way you can get feedback is whether people listen in and buy it. With Minister of Chance specifically, because it doesn't have a big broadcasting house behind it, to publicize it and to use all of that publicity machinery around it, so we use word of mouth, twitter, all those places where people can share it with each other if they like it. And the responses that we've had from people have been really, quite positive. So hopefully, that will spread. But it's what makes it so great, because they can be bold and do things in their own way, and it's been so fantastic to be a part of it.

It's really nice to hear it phrased that way. So often, you hear people complaining about the immediacy of feedback from fans. It's nice to hear it put in a positive light!

I think there is something really valid in recognizing that we live in a time now where you can have direct contact with people, when you're saying, this is a story I want to tell, here it is, people can instantly get back to you in a number of different ways. There's something really valid in that, and important. I think for individual actors, sometimes it's not the best thing to be worrying about what every person out there thinks. That wouldn't be productive or efficient, to get work done. But I think that definitely something to be said for recognizing that there's an exciting opportunity to be direct with the audience – it's like going back to people standing up in a room telling a story – and if you get a laugh, let's do another one! Which makes it exciting, as well as a little bit scary.

Speaking of being directly in front of an audience, have you done much live theater?

That's my background – I left drama school almost two years ago, now and went straight into theater. I did three plays back to back, which was very fortunate. And it was exciting too, as they were all new plays and it's always exciting to get to be the first person to play a role. It's exciting, and each time we had the writer in the room which is a particularly privileged position; I mean, if you're doing Shakespeare you don't have that opportunity, right? It was an exciting process, and I happened to do that three times in a row which was a really exciting year. And when that ended is just when Game of Thrones turned up. Then I came back and did another play in Northampton, and I'm about to do another play at a festival just before Game of Thrones starts up again, at the end of July. So yeah, theater is very much a part of my life.

I'll be at a weekend festival called Latitude, which is mainly a music festival but they also have a theater area where they do cabaret and a comedy tent and then a theater arena, where they put on new plays. And a lot of companies will go there to showcase something, and it's great – a weekend in the countryside, and you camp. Last year was really fun, and I'm looking forward to it this year as well. You do your little bit of work, last year Tom Jones was there and he played a secret gig in the woods – they have ballet on the lake, it was beautiful. Then in July we get cracking on Game of Thrones again.

Do you see any more Doctor Who in your future, then?

If that came up, I'd certainly be on it like a rash! It's just a fantastic show at the moment – I love what Matt Smith is doing. He's part of a great team that seems to be making fantastic television which has a really broad appeal. It's just all down to the creativity of the people involved with it. Some friends worked on it and everyone comes back with really great stories about it. Harry Lloyd, who plays Viserys on Game of Thrones, did an episode, and he had great stories about it.

That's something that I found surprising about Game of Thrones – every time I think I have it nailed down, who the story is about, they kill off that character. It's a good thing there are so many interesting characters because they are dropping like flies!

That's the thing, another reason to have so many characters, is you can just kill them off! It's great, isn't it? That's what will be exciting for the television audience – you feel, even more so than in the books, like you're going to follow a central character, and that doesn't happen as much as you think it might. Have you seen this week's episode? It includes one of those moments that makes you think,”Wow, the gloves are off!”

I've got a lot of friends who love the show, some really good mates of mine from school, and they've been really into the show, and when they ask what's going to happen I don't want to tell them anything, because I don't want to ruin it for them!

See also:

Interview: Sylvester McCoy on Hobbit, Minister of Chance, Who

Doctor Who spin-off movie in the works

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Interview: Jane Seymour on Waiting For Forever

Exclusive: Warwick Davis on Merlin, Potter, Depp and future Leprechaun

Interview: Casino Jack's Jon Lovitz

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