Game of Thrones Star Who Skipped the Books – And Had a Darn Good Reason
Converting a book to the screen with authenticity is a challenge for everybody involved in the production – none more so the actors asked to recreate a role.
Depending on the popularity and readership of the novel, it can often be the case that the viewers already have a vision of any given character in their mind in terms of appearance, persona or both.
And the same can be said of an actor.
There is no doubt that any actor taking on the role of Scrooge, for example, could not be influenced in some small way by the original character created by Charles Dickens – even if they are consciously trying to avoid such inspiration.
In Game of Thrones, Ser Davos, the right-hand man to Stannis until his defection, was played superbly by Liam Cunningham who says that, despite being given a hard time by George RR Martin, he deliberately didn't read the books before playing the character in the show.
Ser Davos is a complex character. A former smuggler, he is also an incredibly loyal man with a firm sense of right and wrong.
To this day, the actor says he still hasn't read the books. Although these days it's more because he hasn't found the time to do so. But he has promised Martin that he will do so when he has the "luxury" of being out of work for a time.
Previously, though, he didn't want to read the books as he was keen to avoid the literary version of the story as he didn't want to be "playing a character from a book".
The revelation came about during a 2017 interview with Vulture in which Cunningham was congratulated on his portrayal and made it clear that, while the blueprint for the showrunners when it came to creating the series was the works of George RR Martin, for him as an actor, the "blueprint was the script".
And when you consider that David Benioff and Dan Weiss made some changes to the story even before the later seasons when they took it in their own direction, Cunningham's decision seems a sensible one.
It may well have resulted in him adding authenticity to the role as he was unaware of how Ser Davos would develop as a character and was able to play him in accordance only with the script in front of him and his own knowledge of the character's history.
Certainly, you'll be hard pushed to find anybody who watched the series and believes he could have played Ser Davos any better by reading the books before stepping foot on set.