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| USA TODAY | - |
LOS
ANGELES - Welcome back, Bran Stark. Where have you been? The Stark
youth (Isaac Hempstead Wright), absent for a full season of HBO's Game
of Thrones, returns Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) after a year of honing his
supernatural skills. The most ...
Bill Keveney, USA TODAY The Stark youth (Isaac Hempstead Wright), absent for a full season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, returns Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) after a year of honing his supernatural skills.
The most dramatic visual change is that Wright, 17, has grown up since Bran’s last appearance nearly two years ago at the end of Season 4.
“What’s nice about Bran missing the season was that it’s a (substantial) change rather than just a gradual, ‘Oh, he’s an older kid now.’ He’s an adult now and he’s got all these adult responsibilities,” the English teen tells USA TODAY.
Thrones left Bran, who has been unable to walk since Jaime Lannister pushed him off a window ledge in the series premiere, as he completed a long, perilous trek by meeting the mystical Three-Eyed Raven, who can train him, in a tree cave.
In the Season 4 finale, the Raven told Bran that he would not walk again, but that he would fly. (In Season 6 photos, Bran, who has often been carried by the faithful giant Hodor – played by Kristian Nairn – is seen standing, an occurrence that has yet to be explained but could be part of one of his visions.)
“This destiny had been calling Bran the whole way through and he hadn’t really known what it was,” Wright says. “He had glimpses of his power, but nothing particularly deep and nothing that exposed the audience to what these powers might be able to do.”
“Season 5 would have been quite dull if Bran had been in it, because it would have been just him training,” says Wright, who focused on school during the time away but missed his colleagues on set. “When he first arrived at the cave, he was a real novice, so it’s a lot more exciting to see him come back in Season 6 as a very changed character.”
Bran, new to controlling his abilities, needs the tutelage of the Raven (Max von Sydow).
“Bran is very much still a teenager. There’s an enormous amount of hubris with his power,” Wright says. “He needs the Raven to guide him and go, ‘You’ve got to stay on the right track and master this power and then you’ve got to use it.’ ”
As Bran learns from the sage Raven, Wright had a similar experience working with the renowned von Sydow (The Seventh Seal, The Exorcist, Hannah and Her Sisters).
He marvels at von Sydow's command. “There are certain lines that aren’t of enormous magnitude in the grand scheme of Westeros, but Max will say one and it will suddenly turn into the most important line you've thought you heard in Game of Thrones.”
For the Seven Kingdoms’ sake, Bran had better be paying good attention to the Raven, because his skills will be sorely needed in a world where war is commonplace and a likely larger threat, White Walkers and an army of zombie wights, looms in the North.
“Now, we have Bran right in the middle of what he’ll be able to do for Westeros," Wright says. "We’ll see him make some interesting decisions about what that might entail.”
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