Actor Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry on Game of Thrones, hinted that his character might finally reunite with Arya Stark in the show's highly anticipated final season.
Chatting with Isaac Fitzgerald, cohost of BuzzFeed News’ morning show AM to DM on Wednesday, Dempsie nearly answered a question about whether fans would get to see the long-awaited reunion between Gendry and Arya Stark.
"I don't know if I can really say. I know a lot of people want Gendry and Arya to be reunited," he said, "Is this going to go out after Episode 1?"
"It will not go out after Episode 1, sadly," Fitzgerald replied.
"In that case you'll have to wait and see," the actor said.
Dempsie also talked about waiting years to find out whether his character would return to the show.
"I think when you're lost at sea for three years, you're amazed to make it back anywhere," he joked.
He said the show's creators told him that he'd return after his character famously rowed off into the distance in Season 3.
"As the years go by you start to wonder, is this going to happen?" he said. "Because, [writers] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and Bryan Cogman — it's such a massive undertaking trying to put this show together, trying to read from the source material and decide which narrative thread you're going to use and which ones you aren't."
"I would've completely understood if after a couple of years waiting, they called me up and said, 'Look man we're really sorry, we don't have time,' or not called me up or recast me with someone else," he said. "I was prepared for that eventuality. And weirdly — I feel like this happens a lot in life — It was when I stopped thinking about it, the phone call came."
Of course, as we all know, Gendry made his triumphant return to Game of Thrones in Season 7 — and he was introduced with a rowing joke!
Dempsie also offered some theories about what Gendry was up to during his time offscreen.
"I imagine whatever the medieval equivalent of a volleyball is, he was doing the Castaway thing," he said.
Full interview: @joedempsie joins #AM2DM to talk about the final season of #GameOfThrones — including what lies in store for Gendry and Arya
CORRECTION
Bryan Cogman's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post.