Game of Thrones season 8: Varys actor Conleth Hill 'frustrated' character got sidelined

'The last couple of seasons weren’t my favourite'

The actor who plays Lord Varys in Game of Thrones has candidly admitted to being frustrated with the past few seasons of the show.

*Spoilers for season eight, episode five below*

Conleth Hill, who has played the Spider on the HBO show since its very first season, was speaking to Entertainment Weekly following the broadcast of his character's death scene: after flipping his allegiance to Jon Snow, he was ratted out by Tyrion to Daenerys, who ordered Drogon to incinerate him.

The actor was quite open about being "inconsolable" after learning his character would die despite feeling better about things in retrospect.

"I took it very personally," he said. "I took it as a person, not as an actor or an artist. I understood the reactions of previous actors who had been in same position a lot more than I did at the time. You can’t help feeling that you failed in some way, that you haven’t lived up to some expectation that you didn’t know about."

Hill did reveal, though, that he felt Varys had been done a disservice in recent seasons.

"That’s been my feeling the last couple seasons, that my character became more peripheral, that they concentrated on others more. That’s fine. It’s the nature of a multi-character show."

He continued: "It was kind of frustrating. As a whole it’s been overwhelmingly positive and brilliant but I suppose the last couple seasons weren’t my favourite. It just felt like after season six, I kind of dropped off the edge.

Fans have criticised the latest episode of the show for humanising the villainous Cersei Lannister in an attempt to "vilify" Daenerys. Lena Headey, who plays Cersei, has revealed the reason why she initially felt “mixed” on her death scene.

You can find a ranking of every character – from worst best – here and the same for every episode below.

The show will be available on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK.