Note: The following article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8.

Former Game of Thrones star Richard Madden has admitted that he was "thankful" for his departure from the HBO fantasy series six years ago.



The actor's character Robb Stark was killed off during the infamous Red Wedding in season 3, and Richard is actually glad he left the show early in its development.

HBO

Related: Game of Thrones' Richard Madden admits he was "totally surprised" by how it ended

"It was such a hard thing to finish because from first pilot to my death was five years," he revealed to Amy Adams on Variety's Actors on Actors.

"But five years was a great time to be on the show. It helped me so much with my career and experience. I learned a lot from shooting 30 hours of television.

"You really start to learn the trade doing that. And then I was thankful to leave it."

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"The actors on it now must be 11 years into playing these characters," Richard added. "Give these guys some medals, because that is a marathon."

Meanwhile, the former one-time King in the North previously shared his brutal theory on who would sit on the Iron Throne before the big finale aired earlier this year.

"I kind of think it's just going to be three dragons flying around and everyone else is dead," he predicted last year. "It's a possibility!"

Well, little did he know at the time, as the finale saw his brother Bran named King of the Six Kingdoms, while Sansa Stark became Queen of the independent North, eventually achieving what Robb set out to do in the first few seasons.

Game of Thrones aired on HBO in the US, and you can also catch up on the show via Hulu. Viewers in the UK can catch up via Sky Atlantic and NOW TV.

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