On religiously sticking to the books:
David Benioff: There are going to be deviations. There are times where something works very well in the books, and we can feel it work as well in the show. And you know when there are those forks in the road where veering left means hewing absolutely and literally to the text, or going right means doing something a bit different, which we think is going to be better for the television series, then we're going to go right.
We intend to remain faithful to the books because we're massive fans of the books. And because we believe they worked incredibly well at narrative. I mean they are just -- George is a master storyteller. And he has come up with so much great stuff that we want to see on screen.
Dan Weiss: If he would only come up with a $10 million casting budget.
DB: Yes that's a good point that Dan makes. I mean if the cast of characters gets bigger and bigger with each book, we can't possibly keep up with that.
DW: You literally, financially, rub up against something that's not possible, even for a generously budgeted television show.
DB: There were certain characters cut in the first season, mostly minor characters. There would have to be more cuts, you know, proportionally in the second season, because there are just so many more characters.
DW: [But] also you're faced with situations like Robb Stark, for instance. He doesn't play as big of a role in the second book as he does the first book. But then you see Richard Madden's performance in the first season and you realize that like you love this character that Richard has brought to life. And the idea of cutting him loose, or putting him on the backburner for a whole season, just becomes a really difficult thing to think about doing.

On how the show will break out over seasons to come:
DB: We don't even know yet if we have a second season. But if the show was to go on, the first few would roughly map to the books. So the first season is Game of Thrones, the second season will be Clash of Kings. The third book is considerably longer. This would be a great problem to have if we get that far. There is talk of perhaps having not necessarily two seasons, [but] one-and-a-half or whatever. And then the fourth and fifth books kind of operate concurrently. So we would start to get a little bit more fudged as we move down the line. But for the first few years at least, yes, it would be a book per season. And ultimately it would probably be about seven or eight seasons for the eventual seven books if that wonderful thing came to pass.

On concerns about being attacked at conventions for years to come:
DB: It's part of the reason I think I don't go onto the message boards. Because you could spend your entire day trying to gauge fan reaction. But one thing that is very important to point out is that the fans are not a monolithic enterprise. And the fans have wildly disparate opinions on everything from who should be cast in various roles, to how scenes should be interpreted, and everything else. And look, we're fans. We would not have spent the last five years of our lives trying to get this adaptation off the ground if we weren't completely in love with George's book. So there are certainly going to be fans that disagree with various choices, and we're glad for that. We're glad that there is so much passion about the books that they would have these spirited debates online. I'm not particularly worried about being firebombed or anything. I think there are going to be people out there who don't like it. But my hope is that most of the fans will enjoy this adaptation.

On Peter Dinklage's big request:
DB: I had met Peter before, socially. We have a mutual friend. So I got his e-mail address and sent him an e-mail that just said, "Look, I don't know if you have heard of these books, but there is a character named Tyrion Lannister and I think you would be fantastic. Maybe we could talk about it at some point." So we started e-mailing. And then he came out to L.A. and we sat down with him and had a great conversation where he basically said, "I am really interested in this part. Just please don't give me a big..."
DW: No fake beards.
DB: Because dwarfs in fantasy movies always have big beards. It's like the cliché of the fantasy.
DW: It's like they are hot and they're uncomfortable and you are wearing them for ten hours a day.
DB: So we promised him he wouldn't have to have a beard. And that went well.

On George R. R. Martin saying these books are unfilmable:
DW: Well who doesn't like a challenge? George had worked in television for many years and is intimately familiar with the restrictions of television budgets and television schedules. And as somebody with a massive imagination, that eventually started to wear on him and he felt the need to kind of let his mind roam free. And that's why we're lucky enough to have his Song of Ice and Fire books. But I would say a couple of things: I would say that HBO isn't -- it's not TV. It's HBO. And they do give you a much wider playing field, and frankly, a much bigger budget than is customary in television. And also the technology has moved on since George [was] working in television -- there were things that were not remotely possible, even in big budget feature films, that are now things you can do on a television budget. And as he was creating these books, the playing field of television changed in such a way as to make them make it a possibility where it wouldn't have been before.

On HBO letting them be gory and sexual:
DB: We wanted to keep the sexuality of the books. We wanted to keep the profanity. I mean, to have a PG-13 movie, where Tyrion never gets to say the C-word, it just wouldn't be Tyrion anymore. And we wanted that. We wanted the brothel scenes. We wanted the bloody violence. You know, if someone's head gets chopped off, you are going to see blood spurting out. And you don't want to not do that because it's a PG-13 movie and you only get, you know, two blood spurts per hour.
DW: And the blood has to be green.
DB: Yes. I mean, there are just so many goofy rules involved by the ratings board. HBO was really the one place where we could have the time to tell the story, and be allowed to [have] the freedom to tell it the way we wanted to.

Game of Thrones starts on Sunday night on HBO. In the meantime, see who the show's geekiest cast members are.

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