'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' seizes the small-story moment in prestige TV with Dunk and Egg

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ser Duncan is tall, but his story is small.

And Ira Parker, showrunner of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdom,” HBO's latest entry to the “Game of Thrones” universe that has charmed and disarmed viewers with its humble story of big, raw, aspiring knight Dunk and his tiny, cue ball-bald squire Egg, says it's going to stay that way.

“If anything, I’d say Season 2 might feel even smaller,” Parker said. “It’s not at all busy and everything. There’s almost some loneliness creeping into this.”

Parker spoke to The Associated Press from the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, where he's making the second season of the show based on George R.R. Martin's series of novellas about the journeys and adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his sidekick whose nickname obscures his true identity.

After eight sprawling seasons of “Game of Thrones” and two seasons of the almost-as-epic “House of the Dragon,” some worried about Westeros fatigue when “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” arrived in January. Instead, it was enthusiastically embraced by fans and plenty of newcomers. People seemed to want a world with no dragons or clashing kings, just an overgrown orphan without a last name trying to become somebody.

Everything about the show is scaled down. Season 1 had just six episodes averaging about 35 minutes, all of them centered entirely on Dunk and Egg.

“It is 100% a function of the underlying material,” Parker said. “We don’t want to have to stretch the story. We like building out the world and hanging out with our characters and having some fun in Westeros. But we don’t want to have odd little side quests.”

Smaller stories may be having a moment in elite TV. “The Pitt,” last year’s best-drama Emmy winner and a favorite to repeat the win, is set almost entirely in one part of one hospital. “Pluribus,” the acclaimed Apple TV+ show that will give it Emmy competition this year, has a single main character.

“Game of Thrones” was also the mother of all Emmy contenders, getting more nominations during its full run than any drama ever.

This little brother of a show could get a little Emmy attention too when nominations are announced next month after a voting period that started Thursday. Its two stars, each as unlikely to find themselves in the spotlight as the characters they play, could both get acting nominations.

Peter Claffey, who plays Duncan, is a 6-foot-5, 29-year-old former professional rugby player who has had a steady stream of supporting roles since switching to acting in 2019 but nothing remotely like the title role in a franchise series.

When he got the Egg gig, Dexter Sol Ansell was plenty experienced for a 9-year-old. (He���s 11 now.) But now he’s become a memeable charmer as the little hairless scamp who’s devoted to Dunk but sitting on big secrets.

They were both big, and lucky, finds for Parker and his team. Dexter was the first kid they looked at for Egg. And he and Claffey have established an off-screen rapport that translates to the screen.

“They’ve just been growing up together and they’re coming up together and they really do talk to each other like brothers now,” Parker said. “There’s an aspect of that that you just can’t create.”

Parker himself has a humble background and isn't used to being the center of such attention. He wrote for shows including “The Last Ship,” “Better Things” and, crucially, “House of the Dragon” before having this gig, and a sort of stardom, fall into his lap.

The sophomore year, however, is going a little roughly.

“Worst experience of my life,” Parker said, smiling but not entirely joking.

Season 2, based on Martin's 2003 novella “The Sworn Sword,” is set in a drought that they’re supposed to be recreating in Spain. But Gran Canaria is getting historic downpours.

“The whole story is about the drought,” he said. “The whole story is somebody damming the water to keep it from someone else.”

But he spoke to AP after a day of sun, with hope for more.

“If we can somehow manage to corral this thing back into its box of sunshiny-ness,” he said, “I think we’re going to have something special.”