NEED TO KNOW
Peter Claffey was more than happy to nerd out about Westeros with George R. R. Martin.
The Irish actor, 29, is the star of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new Game of Thrones spinoff series that follows a naïve knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).
Based on Martin’s series of novellas The Tales of Dunk and Egg, the series takes place about a century before Game of Thrones begins, and, as a “massive original Game of Thrones series fan,” Claffey tells PEOPLE he had so much he wanted to talk to Martin, 77, about.
“I’m just a ginormous nerd when it comes to superheroes and fantasy and stuff,” he admits. “I just loved talking to him about the original show.”
“We spent hours — well, we spent a lot of time the last time we had dinner — talking about different scenes that I loved and stuff like that.”
Steffan Hill/HBO
Martin is a “super down-to-earth, normal guy,” Claffey says — and he’s always down to dig into Westeros lore.
“He likes talking about his creation, and I love talking about his creation,” the actor continues. “He’s really, really sweet, a really lovely guy.”
Taking on the lead role in the series was admittedly “terrifying” for Claffey, who says, “I understand the reverence that people have for this show, and [we’re] just hoping to God that the show gets taken well.”
“We tried to do as good of a job, to both the book and the TV fans, in trying to stick to the characters as much as possible. Hopefully, it will get taken well, but it is daunting,” he adds. “I’ve never experienced anything of this scale before.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Steffan Hill/HBO
While Martin was happy to nerd out with Claffey about the world he created, he kept things very low-key when it came to Claffey playing Dunk.
“He kind of left me to my own devices,” Claffey said. “I think he was quite involved in the casting process himself, so I’m sure he probably saw the way that I wanted to do things, or the way that I was trying to do things.”
The Bad Sisters alum admitted, too, that he “didn’t really want to” bother Martin with questions to begin with. “He seemed to be pretty happy.”
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms drop Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.
