Peter Claffey is a big guy. He’s 29, nearly two metres tall, broad-shouldered. A former rugby player, he's graceful enough on the pitch – less so on the dance floor.
So on a hot night in Belfast, filming the dance sequence for the first episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, art imitated life.
Claffey was filming the meeting between his character, Ser Duncan the Tall, and Lyonel Baratheon (played by Daniel Ings) – a swaggering figure nicknamed the Laughing Storm – and while the scene was supposed to be awkward, things got a bit more awkward than Claffey had intended.
“I remember sweating so much. That’s a healthy thing if you’re an athlete, or so I’ve heard,” Claffey tells The National. “But I remember being drenched and completely exhausted. I had a newfound respect for dancers.”
By the time the cameras moved in for closer coverage, the scene had been running for hours. The costumes were heavy, the room was humid, and both actors were running out of steam. When Claffey missed a step, he came down hard on Ings’s foot.
“We were so tired, I actually stood on his toe,” Claffey said. “I think I broke one of his middle toes, unfortunately.”
The unscripted event remains in the episode – and no, that wasn’t acting.
Ings says: “The reaction was genuine. My tears were genuine.”
Claffey was mortified, particularly because he is such a big fan of Ings from his Netflix series Lovesick. But, true to his own character, Ings took it in stride.
“It was good for the scene,” Ings continues. “You don’t have to do much acting. And he’s such a sweet man – I could tell he felt so bad about it.
“It was so fun crafting that with him and putting together this mad sort of choreography that shows how different these two men are. There’s this giant who is humble and sweet, and then the garish obnoxiousness of my character. I had so much fun working with Peter.”
It may have been years since we saw this kind of light-heartedness in the Westeros series, but it’s precisely the tone of George RR Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, from which A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is adapted. The series steps away from the franchise’s usual sprawl, eschewing the fantasy elements altogether, and ends up feeling more like the best moments of Game of Thrones because of it.
Because of that, the show’s creators told Claffey to lean into his own awkwardness, despite the mishap.
“I was constantly apologising, saying I’m sorry, I’m just nervous and stuff. And they said: 'No, that’s good, because Dunk has to be that.’”
Dunk’s squire is a diminutive, bald child named Egg, played by Dexter Sol Ansell. He’s everything Dunk is not – full of secrets and with a quick wit, as well as a keen eye for the machinations of power across the kingdoms. And, similar to when their characters met, Ansell was also wise beyond his years in a way Claffey couldn’t quite fathom.
“My partner has as a daughter, who was eight at that time. So I told myself I’m going to go in looking to be a mentor, helping him get through it. And that wasn't ever the case.
“I was so impressed from the start seeing how Dexter takes on notes and different things from a director or producer's point of view. I found myself learning a lot from him too, in the acting process,” says Claffey.
“I was learning a lot from you too, as well,” Ansel adds.
“Learning how to be an idiot,” Claffey deadpans.
From there, the two were fast friends, which continued throughout filming.
Ansell says: “We have an absolutely great bond. We go out together and we hang out together so much on and off set. When we were filming, even though we were playing our characters, we were acting like we are in real life.”
For all of Lyonel Baratheon’s swagger, Ings says the character’s reputation carries weight. The nickname Laughing Storm isn’t just bravado – it comes from somewhere darker.
“He laughs on the battlefield,” Ings says. “That’s a pretty dark thing to contemplate – somebody who finds joy in violence and death, I suppose, because it’s exciting.”
It was that tension, he says, that made the role interesting. Knowing when to lean into the humour, and when to let it sit uncomfortably, became part of the job.
Claffey, meanwhile, found grounding in the physical reality of Dunk’s journey. Later in the season, when the character finally steps into full armour, something clicked.
“Seeing yourself in that – the gauntlets, the helmet – you kind of go back to being a kid,” he says. “That image stays in your brain. That’s what you’re trying to emulate.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms stays small – and so the little things matter more. It’s guided less by destiny than by proximity – such as two people learning who they are by watching each other closely.
And occasionally, by stepping on a toe.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is now streaming on OSN+ in the Middle East
