Sunday night’s Game of Thrones Season 7 debut featured the massively popular singer Ed Sheeran in a small role. He played a singing Lannister who Arya meets in the woods. Not everyone enjoyed Sheeran’s performance or the fact that he was on the show at all. Now, the director of the first episode, Jeremy Podeswa, has responded to people saying mean things.
“I think Ed did a lovely job–he’s a lovely actor and a lovely person,” Podeswa told Newsweek. The director further defended Sheeran, saying the criticism of his appearance on the show comes from his international stardom. Since he’s one of the biggest and best-known singers on the planet, that adds another level of “hoo-ha,” Podeswa said.
“He was appropriate for the part because he needed to sing. If people didn’t know who Ed was, they wouldn’t have thought about it twice,” the director said. “The hoo-ha seems to be from things that are outside of the world of the show. In the world of the show he did a lovely job, and he looks like he belongs in that world.”
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Sheeran himself is a big fan of Game of Thrones, and Podeswa said Game of Thrones shies away from “stunt casting” to get more attention.
Sheeran temporarily deleted his Twitter account after the Game of Thrones episode aired, but the singer says on Instagram that the timing was only a coincidence.
“I came off Twitter Coz I was always intending to come off Twitter, had nothing to do with what people said about my Game of Thrones cameo, because I am in Game of Thrones, why the hell would I worry what people thought about that,” Sheeran said. “It’s clearly f**kin’ awesome. Timing was just a coincidence, but believe what you want.”
Sheeran is not the first musician to have a cameo Game of Thrones. Sigur Ros, the drummer from Coldplay, and members of the metal band Mastodon have all been on the show in the past.
