It’s not always easy to gauge the size of a show’s writers’ room just by watching the finished product. Take “Game of Thrones,” for instance. The HBO epic thrived on massive battles, shocking plot twists, and a constantly expanding cast of characters and locations. That’s what makes it so surprising to learn that the scale of the series’ storytelling far outpaced the size of its writers’ room.
In an interview with the Observer, “Game of Thrones” producer and writer Bryan Cogman revealed that the show’s writers’ room was intentionally kept small. The adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s novels was largely handled by showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, with Cogman and a handful of writers providing additional support.
“Yeah, we’ve never had more than four in the writers’ room at any one time, and in the case of Seasons 1 and 4 it was just David, Dan and me,” Cogman described. “We had the wonderful Vanessa Taylor for Seasons 2 and 3, and [in Season 5] we had a terrific young writer named Dave Hill joining the staff, so that was great. But in the end, the show’s voice is David and Dan’s. My job is to support that voice and write for that voice.”
The Game of Thrones writers’ room was so small that even George R. R. Martin ended up on the sidelines
