The production team behind HBO’s blockbuster “Game of Thrones” will be given the BAFTA Special Award at this year’s British Academy Television Craft Awards.

Hannah Murray and John Bradley from the hit series will collect the award on behalf of the team. BAFTA said the accolade is recognition of the boundaries that have been pushed across all areas of production in the making of the fantasy epic.

Filming is underway on the eighth and final six-episode season of “Game of Thrones,” which will air in 2019. HBO is working on several potential spinoffs.

The award also recognizes the support that “Game of Thrones” has provided for high-end TV production in the U.K., BAFTA said. The show has filmed across various locations in Northern Ireland and set up a production headquarters at Titanic Studios in Belfast, the Northern Irish capital, which has been a base for the series since the pilot.

Speaking on behalf of the production team, executive producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff said in a statement: “Many, many people work insanely hard to create any film or television show. They are creators every bit as much as actors, writers, producers or directors, and deserve to be recognized as such.”

“The craft behind what is one of the most popular dramas of our time is nothing short of incredible, from the breath-taking location shots to the intricately designed costumes and set pieces, and not forgetting the level of detail from the makeup and prosthetics team, to name a few,” added Krishnendu Majumdar, chair of BAFTA’s television committee. “Huge congratulations to everyone involved.”

The BAFTA Craft Awards take place on April 22 in London. They will be live streamed on YouTube and Twitter. [Source]

We have a feeling Sophie Turner might be on a mission to slowly but surely break our hearts into teeny tiny pieces at the moment.

If it’s not her confirmation that season eight of Game of Thrones won’t air until 2019, it’s the actress’ recent revelation of what exactly happened when the show’s famous cast and crew joined together for the final read-through of the hit series.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the star – who plays Sansa Stark in GOT – revealed: ‘At the end of the very last script, they read aloud, “End of Game of Thrones”.’

‘As soon as they read that out, pretty much everyone burst into tears,’ she explained.

‘There was a standing ovation for [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss]. We were all clapping and cheering. It was amazing.’

Describing the moment as a ‘shock to the system’, the newly-engaged Brit said: ‘We actually realised, reading that “end of Game of Thrones line” [at the end of the table read], that that was it. When you’re in it, you don’t really see an end point.

‘It’s just an ongoing thing you’re living with. It was a real shock. It was really sad, but there was an immense amount of pride, too.’

Turner’s description of the final cast reading mirrors that of her co-star and onscreen brother Kit Harington’s reaction to the end of the series.

In an appearance on The One Show earlier this year, the 30-year-old – who was recently spotted selling pine trees in Scotland – admitted he was reduced to tears.

‘We had the read-through last week, in fact, so I know everything now,’ he said.

‘I cried at the end! It wasn’t anything particular that happens. You have to remember, I’ve done eight years of it. I think, no-one really cares about it more than us.’

Game of Thrones stars Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner are teaming up to take the wheel and sing songs in an upcoming episode of Carpool Karaoke: The Series. The duo shared the news on Sunday via a video posted on the show’s Twitter page.

The actresses were on hand at SXSW in Austin, Texas to make the announcement that they were shooting an episode for Apple Music’s series.

Based on the hit Late Late Show segment, the upcoming series will feature 16 celebrity pairings riding along in a car together as they sing tunes from their personal playlists. While James Corden won’t be the driver for all the adventures, the stars will drive around and surprise fans who don’t expect to see them belting out tunes one lane over. Additional guests include Michael Strahan, Jeff Gordon, John Cena, Shaquille O’Neal and many more.

Produced by CBS Television Studios and Fulwell 73, Corden and Ben Winston serve as co-creators and executive producers along with executive producer and showrunner Eric Pankowski.

Williams and Turner also took part in the Game of Thrones panel on Sunday, which they moderated. During the discussion showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss announced that Season 8 of the hit HBO series will only consist of six episodes and that Ed Sheeran will have a guest role in the upcoming season.

No premiere date has been set for Carpool Karaoke: The Series. [Source]

After a few months of speculation, HBO has confirmed it: Season 8 of Game of Thrones will be the series’ final season.

Casey Bloys, HBO’s new programming president, confirmed it Saturday at the Television Critics Association summer tour to members of the press. Speaking with the press, Bloys revealed it has been the plan for a while:

“Yes, I think [the showrunners, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff] have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do. If I could get them to do more, I would take 10 seasons but we want to take their lead with what they could do and what the best version of the show is.”

However, Bloys left the door open about the possibility of a potential spinoff when the question was raised:

“We’ve talked about it. It’s not something I’m opposed to but it has to make sense creatively. I’m not sure the guys can wrap their heads around it when they are about to start production. We’re open to it; the guys aren’t opposed to it but there’s no concrete plans right now.”

Now it’s their turn: On HBO’s Game of Thrones, the show’s powerful female characters are about to take center stage more than ever before. So for this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, we go behind the scenes of the Emmy-dominating drama’s ultra-mysterious new season, plus profile six of the show’s leading ladies whose storylines are about to change Westeros forever.

“The women are rocking this season — and I’m not just saying that because they’re on your cover,” says HBO programming president Michael Lombardo. “Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) always does, but also Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), Arya (Maisie Williams), Sansa (Sophie Turner), Cersei (Lena Headey), Margaery (Natalie Dormer), and other characters too, like Yara (Gemma Whelan). They power this season. It’s organic to the storytelling, yet a radical shift. It’s the women that are the hope that we’re watching as the chess pieces move this season, and it’s very exciting.”

The ascension of Thrones’ female characters isn’t a new strategy. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, working from the narrative template established by author George R.R. Martin, introduced Westeros five years ago as a male-dominated world ruled by figures like Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) and Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance). One by one, these strong and commanding men have suffered tragic turns of fate that have cleared the way for a fleet of heroines who have learned new strategies to survive and conquer in a brutal world. Off screen, too, the female actors have become breakouts — landing coveted roles in films ranging from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Christie) and X-Men: Apocalypse (Turner).

In EW’s new double-issue, we profile the women of Thrones, tease what to expect in season 6, provide catch-up and binging guides, plus take you behind the scenes in Northern Ireland and Belfast to reveal how Thrones team pulled off its biggest season yet (and the best, according to the showrunners) while trying to keep more secrets from its fans than ever before.

EW has plenty of online Thrones coverage planned, too – exclusive news, cast interviews, recaps, and more (without spoiling any of the significant twists to come). [Source]

Get ready for A LOT of Sansa Stark in ‘Game of Thrones’ season six. The starlet dished about the all-new season and assured fans that the upcoming season is a ‘big one’ for Sansa. Spoilers ahead!

Let’s be honest: Sansa Stark hasn’t had the easiest time on Game of Thrones. From losing her father to marrying Ramsay against her will, luck has never really been on her side. However, Sophie Turner, 19, revealed in a new interview that Sansa’s luck is about to change. She teased that this will be Sansa’s “best season yet,” and she’s finally getting some respect!

“I mean this season is a really, really big one for Sansa,” Sophie revealed at EW’s SAG Awards party on Jan. 29. “It’s probably her best season yet. It’s her really coming into her own. She, this season, really commands the respect that she deserves and she grabs hold of it and she runs with it and it’s really good.”

It’s about time! Over the course of the past five seasons, Sansa has grown so much and really proven her strength. She’s held her own in the midst of mayhem and managed to stay alive. In the season 5 finale, Sansa leapt off the walls of Winterfell with Theon, escaping Ramsay’s clutches.

Sophie also noted that fans are “finally getting that storyline that you’ve been craving for the past five seasons. It was amazing because the past five seasons, it feels like it’s been building up and up to that. You can only suffer so much before she finally gets her, the respect that she deserves.”

Season six will be quite a change for Game of Thrones fans. It’s the first season that’s not following one of George R.R. Martin’s books. Yep, he’s STILL not finished with Winds of Winter. Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys, teased that this season will be “epic.”

“Legitimately, this season almost killed us,” Emilia revealed to E! News at the SAG Awards. “Like, it is epic. Like, it’s huge. It’s insane. It’s silly.” [Source]

Actress Sophie Turner thinks the storyline for X-Men: Apocalypse is “the darkest” by far in comparison to other recent franchise instalments.

The 19-year-old star portrays a young version of telekinetic and telepathic mutant Jean Grey in the forthcoming picture, and she anticipates audiences will be blown away by the twists and turns screenwriter Simon Kinberg penned into the script.

“It’s the darkest X-Men so far, definitely,” she tells Entertainment Tonight of what fans can expect to see in Apocalypse. “There’s a little bit of a love story in it. It’s very exciting.”

Although specific plot details for the film, which is the ninth instalment in the X-Men series, remain tightly under wraps, big picture elements of the narrative have been released to the public. According to IMDb, the upcoming feature centres on the efforts of Professor Charles Xavier and his team to prevent Apocalypse, the first, immortal and most powerful mutant of all, from exterminating the entire human race.

X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer, who took charge of X-Men, X-Men 2 and 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, previously claimed no character is safe from death in the new movie.

“I’ll kill any of those characters any day I want,” Singer told reporters during an Apocalypse set visit last summer (15), according to The Hollywood Reporter. “They’re all fair game. Anything can happen.”

The film has an impressive cast, with James McAvoy playing Professor Xavier, Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique and Olivia Munn as Psylocke. X-Men: Apocalypse reaches U.S. theatres on 27 May (16). [Source]

Movies franchises, specially about superheroes, are not uncommon those days. X-Men is one of the most popular ones and, since Days of Future Past was realeased, X-Men fans are crazy to see what comes next.

Knowing that, 20th Century Fox is working on the next movie, X-Men: Apocalypse since back DoFP had even premiered. The movie will bring back Bryan Singer, the director who helped to launch the first X-Men movies and came back for for X-Men: Days of Future Past.

About the big villain of the movie, we also got a sneak peek from the end-credit scene of the last film: for the first time, we saw Apocalypse using his powers to control the Great Pyramid, in Egypt, where people thought he was a God (so we also find out he has been around for a very long time). From the comics, we know his given name is En Sabah Nur, which translates to “The First One” – so Apocalypse can very well be the first mutante toe ver exist! Reportedly, his agenda in this movie is to creat a new world where he can be the ruler. Oscar Isaac is set to play the big villain this time.
Jean Grey is back

The movie will take place in the First Class franchise, since most of the First Class cast is set to make an appearance in Apocalypse. Other names in the cast are Jennifer Lawrence, reprising her role as Mystique, Evan Peter as Quicksilver and Lucas Till as Havok. Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner will play Jean Grey.

Accoding to The Movie Plot website, “what will be happening before Apocalypse arrives is Professor X following through with his promise from Days of Future Past to Wolverine to seek out the X-Men. In fact, the three main people Wolverine told Professor X to find are in the movie; Cyclopes (Tye Sheridan) , Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Jean Gray (Sophie Turner)”.

X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse will bring the team led by Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) against Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), the first and most powerful mutant. The cast returning Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence and the great cast last long.

Apocalypse’s official first trailer will be released later this month attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.The movie is set to premiere on May 27, 2016. [Source]

The ‘Game of Thrones’ star has not seen Starz fantasy series

In today’s edition of Things You Probably Already Figured Weren’t True, those rumors about Sophie Turner joining the cast of Outlander season 2 are false.

The Game of Thrones star was reportedly up for the role of Brianna Fraser, the redheaded future daughter of Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jaime (Sam Heughan) in the time-travel fantasy romance.

In fact, there are stories that have declared she’s already cast in the show.

Some savvy TV fans already know that it’s extremely rare for an actor who is a series regular on one series to land a large role on another, especially if the networks are rivals. Contractually, actors are just not allowed to take a job that might undermine the show they’re already on.

We recently asked Turner, who’s coming off her strongest performance yet on the HBO hit, about the rumor. “Somebody mentioned [the role] to me when I was on a red carpet somewhere, that I’d make a great Brianna, and I think the guy Sam retweeted it or something,” Turner told EW. “So people started talking like I was in it. I’ve never seen the show. I’m sure it’s great, but I’m loyal to my one true love!”

But Turner does have other upcoming big-screen projects coming up — X-Men: Apocalypse, where she’ll play Jean Grey, and Mary Shelly’s Monster. [Source]