This guy has one of the world’s strangest jobs

Liam Cunningham plays Ser Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones. Source: Supplied

LIAM Cunningham has one of the world's strangest jobs. He plays a good guy in Game of Thrones.

His character, the Ser Davos Seaworth, is a modest, honourable man drowning in a sea of egotistical backstabbers. He was raised in the slums of King's Landing, and grew up to become a smuggler, but then earned himself a gig as the top adviser to would-be king Stannis Baratheon.

In short, he's a fascinating character.

Cunningham is in Sydney to attend the opening of Game of Thrones: The Exhibition on Monday. We sat down for an interview, which you will find in its full, gloriously geeky form below.

Naturally, if you haven't seen season four, there will be spoilers.

NOTE: Liam hasn't read the books. I haven't either. So we're both scratching around in the dark here regarding the future plot of the show. Book readers, please keep the spoilers in check.

MORE: We review the Game of Thrones finale

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Liam is listed as a starring character in the Game of Thrones cast. Source: Supplied

SAM: So your character, Davos. He's had a big season, and really proved his worth, I think. It was his idea to go to the Iron Bank in Braavos, it was him who argued the case when it was going so badly. Do you think he's wrestled back Stannis's attention from Melisandre? Is he back to being the top adviser?

LIAM: If I was in Stannis's position, I would be taking advice wherever I could get it. But yeah, at the end of season three, Stannis wanted to have me killed. It was the Red Priestess that saved my arse. So to come back with this — with the help of Shireen (Stannis's daughter) of course, who gives me the idea — to come back and do this, I mean it's a step forward.

As George Martin said in an interview, what Stannis originally wanted to do was save the realm by becoming king. Now the idea was, let's save the realm, then become king, which is why he does what he does north of The Wall.

So it looks like it's a step in the right direction, but in Game of Thrones, this could go anywhere.

"You're right ... this could go anywhere." Source: Supplied

SAM: But has he grown in influence? I mean, he was locked in a dungeon last season. Has he become the top man again, the guy Stannis relies on?

LIAM: Well, I think he's always gone to him. My sort of ... metaphor for him, and the way I've always thought of him is — for those of your readers who know their movies — I've always thought about him as the Robert Duvall character in The Godfather. He's kind of the Tom Hagen, consigliere. Not quite part of the family, but his advice and his counselling are highly respected. And Stannis has always kind of respected that, you know, hard truths have to be listened to, and Davos is not afraid to say them.

Stannis says to him, "You don't have much regard for your life, do you?" And he says, "No, not really." He wants to do the right thing. He's a principled man. He's decent. He's got honour. Not because that's the right thing to do, but because that's who he is. He's a great man to have in your corner.

Davos has come a long way in the last two seasons. Source: Supplied

SAM: He's extremely loyal, and Stannis has done quite a few things that Davos would not agree with throughout the series so far. What would Stannis have to do to shatter that loyalty, to convince Davos not to follow him? Could he do anything?

LIAM: I don't think Davos would think like that. It's not, "If he does this, if he does that, I'm finished with him." There's never a question of that. I think Davos feels a responsibility. Davos considers Stannis a good man and the right man for the job, because he is. I mean, if you look at it on paper, Stannis should be there.

Even with Stannis attempting to put him to death ... Davos would see that as Stannis making a mistake, and a mistake that needs rectified, as opposed to taking it personally.

Davos (left) with Stannis. Source: Supplied

SAM: As an aside ... back at the end of season three, we saw Gendry going off in a row boat. We haven't seen him since. Where the hell is Gendry?

LIAM: It's funny you should say that, because Joe Dempsie (who plays Gendry) tweeted from his personal account about a week ago. I retweeted it actually, and he put down two words: "Still rowing." I thought it was very clever! Still rowing. Don't fall out of the boat.

SAM: That relationship with Gendry might have been a short one for Davos, but I think it revealed quite a lot about his character. And particularly how much his son meant to him. Their conversation down in the dungeons was big.

LIAM: Yeah there is a bit of that, and both of them are from Flea Bottom. From the hood. But you know what? He didn't even do it (let Gendry escape) so much for Gendry. It wasn't a personal thing, it's the principle of the thing. It's like Davos says to Stannis: "If you're killing an innocent, then you're just the same as the rest of the bastards we were trying to get out." It's like the old cliche, isn't it? It's better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be put to death.

Again, it's back to the honour. Davos, in a way, sees Stannis as being an honourable leader, as being a man who won't take advantage. Unlike the Lannisters, who have no respect for their subjects.

I suppose, in a sense, Davos sees Stannis as a Solomon character. He feels he's been led astray, but this woman is using magic and using dishonourable methods to get where they want to get him. They have two methods of getting him there. Davos sees Stannis as being slightly corrupted in his methods of getting there, and that corruption will continue if that woman stays by his side.

Melisandre, otherwise known as the Red Priestess. Source: Supplied

SAM: There's a scene — it might be the one in which Melisandre saves his life — in which Stannis is standing, looking out over the bay, and you've got Davos behind one of his shoulders and Melisandre behind the other. That's quite biblical, where you have, sort of, the angel and the devil behind him. Is that the symbolism the writers were going for?

LIAM: It is. That's what's been played between them, this triangle. And bizarrely, they all want the same thing, but it's their methods that differ. Stannis thinks because he didn't, at the time, have the resources to get there, that he can do it by any means necessary, and then take care of business once he gets into the position of being king. Then he can start behaving himself. But Davos doesn't see it like that. It's the old thing ... absolute power corrupts absolutely.

SAM: Has the death of Davos's son changed his character at all, in a way that you've noticed?

LIAM: You could tell there was a fantastic relationship between the two of them, and I think the relationship with Shireen has developed because he's lacking his one son, which I think was seven sons in the book.

I think what's great is that, in the show, we're able to show that this guy's a good dad, and he's probably the only dad that Shireen has, and she's comfortable around him. I remember Alex Graves, one of our esteemed directors, saying it's extraordinary that we have these sweet scenes in this show — this hardcore, sexy, violent show — and we've got these sweet scenes between Davos and Shireen. And they fit quite beautifully into the tapestry of this show, and I think they're really valuable, they really build the characters. And I think they're one of the reasons the fans really like Davos. He's one of the few decent characters in it, who isn't out for himself.

Shireen Baratheon, Stannis's daughter, has a close relationship with Davos. Source: Supplied

SAM: George R.R. Martin has spoken several times about how he's used Tolkien and Lord of the Rings as an inspiration. I think something that is very different between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones is the way they deal with religion. There is no religion explicitly in Lord of the Rings, it's all subtext, whereas it's a real motivation for characters in the show. Do you think that adds depth to it?

LIAM: I think so. I definitely think Game of Thrones is a modernised, and more grown-up and sophisticated version. I mean, we all know how beautiful and complex that world that Tolkien painted is.

One of the reasons George wrote the complexity into this story is that he was, and obviously still is, a television writer, but was so constrained by budgets — with producers saying, "Yeah, we like the idea of this war, but can we make it two guys and a horse?" - that he decided to write these books and letters with his imagination just free, because he thought it would never be filmed.

He wrote about what's near and dear to him. Obviously, religion doesn't play a huge part in George's life, I would imagine, and to have that tussle between faith and lack of faith ... maybe he's of the same opinion as Karl Marx, that religion is the opiate of the people. And I think that sort of comes across in the show to a certain extent.

There appears to be no explicit religion in Tolkien's Middle Earth. Source: Supplied

SAM: How does Davos deal with religion as a character? He's an atheist who sees Melisandre performing these magical acts, how does all that conflicting information compute in his head?

LIAM: I think he views her as a witch. He views Melisandre the same way as the dragons. They weren't supposed to be there, but they are there. She has powers, yes. But he doesn't see her as having any god-given powers. He says that he thinks gods were made up to help children sleep at night. I tend to agree.

SAM: You. The actor. Liam. If you're giving Davos advice for next season, what are you telling him?

LIAM: Well I haven't seen what's coming up, I haven't seen the new scripts yet and I haven't read the books ...

SAM: That's what makes it interesting!

LIAM: Yeah, that's what I like about it. You know, if you're doing movies, on a set ... many times I've shot the end of a movie in the first week of shooting. Because of locations, or budgets, or actors' availability. But this, by its very nature, has to be shot in more or less consecutive order.

So there's a certain amount of joy in playing a character in the moment, and not knowing what's going to roll out as it goes on. It's a bit like life, in a way. And it's much more interesting, because the surprises are there, and I don't know my death is going to happen in whatever episode or series. I'm playing him as being alive and in the moment. For an actor, that's much more healthy, I think.

Liam Cunningham at the season four premiere earlier this year. Source: Getty Images

SAM: So put yourself in the moment now. What should Davos do next?

LIAM: Well I think the next thing, after the battle, is that King's Landing is in our sights. How we get there, I presume, is the next journey. And who we're going to come across, and who we're going to battle, or outmanoeuvre. And that's what's interesting. The boys have it all down, the gods of the show, and I'll be getting the scripts in the next two or three weeks.

SAM: Excited?

LIAM: Yeah, very excited. I love getting them. When you get 10 scripts, it's just great. And seeing everbody's story is interesting, because we operate in cells. It's like paramilitary units, the way we work. So to see everybody's story rolled out and to see where everybody's going to go is fantastic. I read them like a fan. And when I see the show, I watch it like a fan. Everybody does, because we're only in certain sections.

You bump into actors, and they're like, "Man, you've got some really cool stuff coming up," and "I wasn't expecting that, oh he's dying, she's dying, somebody new is coming in." It's a very cool show to work on.

You can check out the Game of Thrones Exhibition website here.

Where does Ser Davos Seaworth rank among your favourite Game of Thrones characters? Talk to us on Twitter: @SamClench | @liamcunningham1 | @newscomauHQ | @GameOfThrones

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