Game of Thrones is about to launch into Season 2 - on April 1st on HBO in the US and April 2nd on Sky Atlantic HD in the UK - with a whole host of new characters, including some particularly intriguing females. And by having such a huge hit behind them the original ensemble cast, and crew, faced even more pressure to live up to fan's expectations. IGN caught up with some key players at the Season 1 DVD/Blu-ray launch at The Old Vic Tunnels in London, and investigated some of the sets and locations on a recent vifsit to Northern Ireland.

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: From the beginning we just didn't want to f**k it up and I think George [R.R. Martin – author] knew that by having a couple of novelists come in to adapt his work was a good thing.: Well, his wife told us we didn't f**k it up!: We all went into [Season 1] terrified of the fan base – they can be your biggest supporter or they can be your worst enemy. The challenge with any of this fantasy work is achieving the epic and also making it connect emotionally – and doing that for less money than your average blockbuster doubles the challenge. I'm amazed by what we were able to pull off for Season 2.: Season 2 is more about the lead up to war and what happens when there's a power vacuum that needs to be filled and more than one person thinks that they're the one to fill it. George R. R. Martin hasn't been on set that often as he's working on the new novel, but he writes one episode per year and he's a great resource. We have all sorts of great secrets about book six but we can't tell you!: In Season 2 there's the war – we're expanding the worlds that we set up in the first season so we go to more countries and farther afield. And the stories we set up in the first season are diverging. We went to Iceland this year, Croatia…": Ygritte's a Wildling and comes from North of The Wall – the 'true north'. She's a lot of fun, very level-headed and strong, and she has a lot of fun teasing Jon Snow. We were filming in Iceland and it was very, very cold – there were days when we were on a mountaintop in a blizzard of -26C.: My first day there was something like one hundred and fifty extras, it was terrifying! There has been much speculation on the Jeyne that I'm playing – all I can say is that you're in for a big surprise. We can safely say that there is definitely a kiss with a certain lovely gentleman.: I think she's a really inspirational character to have in a programme of this type, because there hasn't been that sort of character in such a mainstream show before - particularly one that is defying so many gender stereotypes. There's masses of action scenes – there's lots of sword fighting, some canoeing…it's really badass!: We've had a sneaky peek at the first two episodes and it's nothing short of remarkable. They've pushed the boat out on this one – literally! The poster for Season 1 was 'Winter is Coming' and on this one it's 'War is Coming' and Stannis [Baratheon] and the boys, including me, are a very big part of that. Carice van Houton is playing Melisandre who is scuppering my plans because I'm trying to do it the real way with diplomacy and battle and she's bringing in all these extraordinary things, which will be revealed as the show goes on. It was astonishing when I read it, it was amazing when we were shooting it, and it will be very interesting to see what the reaction is to it.: I really enjoyed getting to meet the cast who play my family – the girl who plays my sister Yara [Gemma Whelan] is amazing; and a really cool girl. When I got the part I knew it was one of the main roles, but then I realised it was a background role in Season 1 - and so I was itching to get into it in Season 2! I'm so happy to be a part of it – I still can't believe it to be honest it hasn't really sunk in…it's already massive in America and will achieve cult status here.: I was completely taken aback as to the extent of how brilliantly Game of Thrones has been received. I just wanted to keep the fans as happy as possible – when you're dealing with someone's favourite character from their favourite book you sort of want to be very careful with the way that you play it. I remember when I first got the role and I looked at something [in the press] and it was bad and I thought – that's it – I'm never looking again! Season 2 feels very different, definitely. I had a lot of fun doing Season 2. I actually feel like it's even better than Season 1.: I think Season 2 is going to be bigger and better than the first one. It was a shame to loose Sean [Bean] but we've got a lot of new cast members to welcome into our 'family'. Sansa has a really rough time in Season 2 at the hands of Joffrey but she grows a lot stronger. I think in this season you'll begin to like her and feel a lot more sympathy for her.: In this season he starts to experience emotions and certain feelings deep down inside him that you never thought he was capable of feeling. He matures from a boy into kind of a 'half-man'.: It took me two days to get the smell of blood off my hands [from skinning a deer in Season 1] - I thought they would give me a haunch of venison to take home with me but they didn't! In season two you see a little of what's behind the rather austere exterior - that Tywin's not quite the bastard that you think he is.Co-creator and Producer D.B. Weiss claims that Game of Thrones is "more epic than even the Tolkien world" and judging by the scale of the production, number of characters, different lands and wealth of material he's not far wrong. With rumours that the book 'A Storm of Swords' will be shot consecutively over season three and four, the show's cast and creators seem to be in it for the long haul – and the recent IGN set visit certainly pointed in that direction.When we were given exclusive access to The Paint Hall in Belfast – an ex-ship building hanger that houses the interiors of The Eyrie, the newly re-decorated Throne Room, bed chambers, Tyrion's cell and a sea of workshops – there was an adjacent plot of land being prepped for a second giant shooting stage. The set for The Eyrie, we were told, is too big and expensive to dismantle and put into storage, and so it's lying silent; awaiting its return in future seasons. The production seems have laid down roots in Northern Ireland, not only with the infrastructure of studio sets, but alongside the natural landscape - crumbling castles, woodland and coastline (which comes to the fore with the introduction of the Greyjoys). The time, money and attention to detail invested in Game of Thrones was none more evident than when IGN chatted to the key craftsmen on site at The Paint Hall.: I design and manufacture all of the principle weapons. For Season 1 we rented in a considerable amount of background weapons but on Season 2 we made the decision to make all of the weapons here in this workshop, and for the principle weapons we make two of each. The whole series has got a reality about it – it's a fantasy series but you look at it and everything's believable. Part of that is because everybody in each of the departments had brought some reference from some different countries, some cultures in the world, so when you look at it it's right. It's the same thing with our weapons – we've used archaeological and historical finds as the basis of what it is that we produce.So the question is, with the bar set this high will Game of Thrones live up to expectations and will the 'Song of Ice and Fire' be heard for years to come?