Game of Thrones season 6: They really dropped the actors for that hanging scene

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You may have dismissed the execution of Ser Alliser Thorne and Olly in Game of Thrones season 6 episode 3 as one of the show’s many CGI tricks, but in fact the actors really hung - at least in the literal sense.

“Yeah, we did really drop them,” director Dan Sackheim explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette. “It’s always kind of chilling because your initial reaction is visceral. They’re in these harnesses that drop and it is a little bit of a shock to the system.”

The actors might have been completely safe and monitored by trained professionals, but for the actors it was still a pretty frightening experience.

“The first time feeling that drop and the noise of the barrels being pulled back is terrifying when you’re standing above it,” said Brenock O’Connor, who played the much-maligned Olly. “It feels so real and that adds to the ability to act terrified during the scene.”

The execution was one of the most dramatic scenes of the ‘Oathbreaker’ episodes, and David Benioff discussed how Jon dealt with it mentally.

“It all comes back to Ned Stark; the man who passes the sentence swings the sword, it’s the northern ethos,” he explained. “Jon really doesn’t want to do this, but the justice of if it is clear - these men assassinated the Lord Commander, they need to be executed.”

With his Night’s Watch business out of the way, we saw Jon this week make plans to take back Winterfell.