We lost our swords after a few moves, and then it just got down and dirty. I had the stuntmen saying to the strongest man in the world “When you pick up Rory, just throw him at half strength onto the wall over there” and I’m going, “Woah, woah, woah, that’s still a lot of brute force, can we go down to 10 percent maybe?” So I was a bit battered and bruised. But Hafþór [Júlíus Björnsson, who plays the Mountain] was suffering big time as well. He had a prosthetic in which he could barely drink, nevermind eat, and was extremely hot as well. But he did fantastically. He’s actually a gentle soul. I had to encourage him to strangle me more, to press into my eyes more; he’s absolutely a big gentle man and aware of his strength, thank God. He’s a great guy, and it was a legendary fight.

HBO: Before your final showdown you have a wonderful little moment with Arya, played by Maisie Williams. What was it like being reunited with her again this season?

Rory McCann: We’ve been on a hell of a road trip together. Arya’s completely different from the little girl the Hound first met. There’s a real respect for her. In that scene, there’s a dragon above us, things are tumbling down, but he’s trying to get one last message through to her: she doesn’t need to live her life full of hate and anger, there can be another way. It’s too late for the Hound, he’s decided.

Working with Maisie has been magical. I still can’t quite believe that amongst all the politics of this big story we were almost allowed our little road trip on the side. It’s definitely one of the happiest jobs I’ve ever had. I love working outside. So it brought back great memories working with her. She’s a fantastic actress and she kept me on my tip-toes that’s for sure.

HBO: What will you miss the most about working on this series?

Rory McCann: Am I going to ever have a greater written story or character that’s so perfect for me? The amount of different directors was a great opportunity too. Working with the best of the best. They all work differently, so I learned a lot from that. I still haven’t watched the whole show, but I may try to set up a projector on my boat and play Game of Thrones on my main sail as I go. One of my sails has a dog on it as well. It’s just a little nod.

I felt like [creators] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] knew me so well that when I opened up the scripts in the last few years it was almost the way I talk, and my mannerisms. They used parts of me big time. It’s never going to be the same again. They understood us. We were having dinner at David and Dan’s house in Belfast and I cracked open a beautiful bottle of whiskey. And it was late, and I was doing the main part of my fight with the Mountain the next day and Dan stood up and said, “You have a big day tomorrow,” and took my glass away. And I sounded like a little boy saying, “But I don’t want to go home!” I had to leave the party early. It was like a family thing. Course, the next day when I was getting tossed down the stairs I said to him, “Do you not think it would have been better if I had been still drunk?”

I’ll miss all of that, but I’m glad it’s over as well. I won’t miss the hours of makeup and hulking around the armor, I can see myself when we started, I’ve got no gray in my beard, and now I do and I’m hobbling around like an old man. But happy memories. I’ll heal soon. It’s never going to be as good as Game of Thrones, it can’t be, but boy were we lucky.

The final episode of Game of Thrones premieres Sunday at 9 pm.

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