Master of the Game

Fantasy becomes reality for the co-creator of Game of Thrones.

IT’S NOT JUST THE FATE OF SEVEN kingdoms that lies in the hands of Game of Thrones co-creator and executive producer David (Friedman) Benioff. He also has a massive cast and crew depending on him, as well as 14 million fans hanging on his characters’ every word. Which is why, while scripting the show with partner D.B. Weiss, he is rarely opening that hot viral cat video of the day. If he’s late with a script, “we can’t schedule the season, and the directors can’t prep their episodes,” he says. “The dire knowledge that procrastinating will screw over the show keeps me focused.” Set in the fictional realm of Westeros and inspired in part by medieval England, the epic HBO series features gruesome

Set in the fictional realm of Westeros and inspired in part by medieval England, the epic HBO series features gruesome battles, heartbreaking drama, flying dragons and enough sexual content to make you wonder if you accidently hit the pay-per-view button. Based on the fantasy series of novelist George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones’ storylines are so richly woven, it’s a rare viewer who can fully follow the plot devel- opments. Hence, countless webpages now track everything from bloodlines to beheadings. It’s a lot to keep up with, even for Benioff. Sitting down to adapt the 1,000-plus-page tomes “can be stressful,” he admits. Still, “nothing beats the kick of walking on set and seeing the ac- tors perform a scene you wrote.” Especially when those scenes are shot in exotic locales. The show has taken him to Malta, Morocco, Northern Ireland and Croatia. Benioff’s favorite spot so far is Iceland, where much of Season 4, premiering April 6, was filmed. “We shot on a glacier there, on a frozen lake, beneath a frozen waterfall,” says Benioff, 43. “It’s all so spectacularly otherworldly, as if designed for epic fantasies.” The downside, of course, is that he’s away for long stretches from his wife, actress Amanda Peet, and their daughters Frances, 7, and Molly, 3. “I spend a depressing amount of time on Skype,” he says.

Although he’s one of Hollywood’s leading screenwriters now (his films include Troy, The Kite Runner and 25th Hour, which is based on his novel), Benioff initially didn’t make the cut when he applied for the creative writing program at Dartmouth. “When I came across David’s application, I found it dense, edgy and incomprehensible,” says professor Ernest Hebert. But when the young man went to plead his case, “he had this look on his face of despair and yearning. I knew I’d made a big mistake,” says Hebert, who went on to become Benioff’s advisor for his senior fellowship. “I’ve never had a student work harder,” he adds.

Benioff’s love of the otherworldly began when he was a boy in New York City. “Until I was 14 fantasy and science fiction were pretty much all I read,” he says. “Tolkien, of course, but also Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Madeleine L’Engle, Lloyd Alexander—if there was magic involved, or spaceships, I wanted to read it. Then I hit puberty and abruptly lost interest. I didn’t want girls seeing me with an Elric of Melnibone paperback on the 79th Street bus.”

His interest resurged when he met Weiss, a fellow grad student at Trinity in Dublin, and they bonded over their history as, yes, Dungeon Masters. Friends ever since, they read Martin’s books in 2006, and HBO happily bit when they pitched the series. Thrones now has one of the biggest budgets on TV at $6 million per episode and earns the net- work its highest ratings since The Sopranos.

With Peet also at the keyboard now—her first play, The Commons of Pensacola, opened on Broadway this winter— Benioff is busy serving as a writing advisor, a job that would send most husbands running. “I read every draft of every- thing she writes and try to give her honest criticism,” he says. “Then she punches me in the face.”

Benioff soon hopes to start his first novel since 2008’s bestseller, City of Thieves.

JENNIFER WULFF is a freelance writer in Wilton, Connecticut.