"Game of Thrones" taps Ed Sheeran to guest star in season 7

PanARMENIAN.Net - "Game of Thrones" has tapped Ed Sheeran to guest star in season seven. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss announced during South by Southwest Festival panel that the "Shape of You" hitmaker would join Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Kit Harington and more in the upcoming season, AceShowbiz said.

"For years we were trying to get Ed Sheeran on the show to surprise Maisie and this year we finally did it," said Benioff. He went on explaining, "A lot of [music artists] say they would like to [be on the show], and then we tell them [shooting a scene] is so boring. 'You're gonna hate this - you're going to be sitting around three days for 12 hours a day.' "

"Game of Thrones" previously featured appearances by musical artists like Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Coldplay's Will Champion, Sigur Ros and Mastodon. The showrunners then revealed that Sigur Ros' lead singer Jonsi Birgisson wanted to leave after a close-up during Jeoffrey's (Jack Gleeson) wedding in the third season, without realizing that he had to stick around as a background actor for several more days. Weiss said, "He was a super good sport about it."

Additionally, Benioff and Weiss also confirmed that the eight and final season of "Game of Thrones" would consist of six episodes. "It's only going to be six episodes for the final season," said Benioff. "From the beginning we've wanted to tell a 70-hour movie."

Benioff continued saying, "It will turn out to be a 73-hour movie, but it's stayed relatively the same of having the beginning, middle and now we're coming to the end." He added, "It would have been really tough if we lost any core cast members along the way, I'm very happy we've kept everyone and we get to finish it the way we want to."

The seventh season of "Game of Thrones" premieres on Sunday, July 16 on HBO.