Peter Dinklage on Tyrion's Game of Thrones ending: "death can be a great way out"

Given the show's history of disposing of major characters, and the cataclysmic nature of the upcoming final season, it's not outside the bounds of possibility that Tyrion – despite having been one of the show's major players since the beginning – could bite the dust before the credits roll on the finale, and Dinklage knows that's what a lot fans are worried about. He, on the other hand, reckons it's not a bad way to go.

In a new interview with Vulture ahead of the release of his new HBO film, My Weekend with Hervé, he was hesitant to say too much, but dropped a hint that the Imp could meet his maker.

"I feel very, very... I'm trying to find the right word," he said. "I think he was given a very good conclusion. No matter what that is — death can be a great way out."

He also shed some light upon his last few days of shooting, which, though "anticlimactic" due to much of the show being filmed out of order, he says were "beautifully bittersweet".

"It's always anticlimactic for the character's last day," he said. "Nothing is shot chronologically, so you don't get some big mountain-top scene or anything. It's just, 'That's a wrap on Peter Dinklage'."

"But as anticlimactic as it was, my last day was also beautifully bittersweet. A lot of people whom I love were on set that day. Even if they weren't working, they came to set, which was beautiful. I tried to do the same thing when other actors were wrapping out."

He then referenced a particularly emotional occasion, when one of the young stars who had "grown up on the show" finished filming and had everyone in tears.

"I won't say their name or their character's name, but one of the young people on the show wrapped this past season and everybody was a wreck. This person had grown up on the show, you know? They were a child and now they were an adult. And then they're done. It's like we were witnessing this person saying goodbye to their childhood."

Sounds heavy. Let's hope that emotional intensity is intact when the new episodes debut next year...

Game of Thrones season 8 is set to air in 2019

Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter