GoT Spinoff Star Says His Knight Channels Brienne of Tarth

Westeros diehards who still miss Brienne of Tarth may have a new favorite knight on the way. At CCXP25 in Brazil, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms star Peter Claffey revealed that his take on Ser Duncan the Tall is directly inspired by Gwendoline Christie’s beloved warrior from Game of Thrones.

The upcoming HBO Max prequel adapts George R.R. Martin’s novella The Hedge Knight, the first of his Tales of Dunk and Egg, and is slated to premiere January 18, 2026. Claffey, who plays Dunk, said he looked to Brienne not just for lineage clues but for a moral compass.

‘There Are a Lot of Aspects They Share’

When asked at the panel whether Christie’s performance informed his own, Claffey didn’t hesitate. “I think so, yeah,” he said, calling himself a huge fan of the original series and of Christie’s Brienne in particular, according to IGN’s report.

“She’s very chivalrous. She wants to do what’s right. She just wants to be a knight,” Claffey explained, noting that Brienne’s struggle to earn respect as a woman in Westeros made her journey “a much harder job than Dunk did. But there is definite likeness.”

That likeness is more than spiritual. Martin has already confirmed that Dunk and Brienne share a bloodline, making the visual and thematic echoes a quiet nod to fans who’ve pored over the family trees for years. At the panel, Claffey even joked with his co-star Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Prince Aegon “Egg” Targaryen, that the young actor had worked with “my granddaughter” Christie on another film.

Building HBO’s Next Westeros Era

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is one of several projects in a rapidly expanding Westeros slate. HBO has already renewed the Dunk and Egg series for Season 2 ahead of its debut, signaling strong confidence in the adaptation, as reported by Yahoo.

Martin is heavily involved as writer and executive producer alongside showrunner Ira Parker, with Sarah Adina Smith and Owen Harris directing episodes, per Rotten Tomatoes. HBO is betting big enough on Dunk and Egg that Season 2 has already started gearing up while cameras roll on Season 1, as we’ve covered in our look at how Season 2 is already filming in Belfast.

The show also marks a shift away from dragon dynasties toward a more grounded, road-trip vision of Westeros. As we’ve previously noted in our primer on how the series signals HBO’s post‑Targaryen era, Dunk is a lowborn hedge knight whose story leans on heart, honor, and small-scale stakes rather than apocalyptic prophecy.

Why Book Readers Are Watching Closely

For longtime readers, the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas are some of Martin’s most cherished side stories, offering a warmer, funnier corner of Westeros where chivalry still has a chance. With the author unusually hands-on and the lead actor consciously channeling one of the franchise’s most morally upright characters, the series is poised to become a rare blend of fan-service and faithful adaptation.

Martin has yet to confirm whether Brienne is literally Dunk’s granddaughter, but with the prequel arriving in early 2026 and more Westeros projects — including an Aegon the Conqueror series and animated 10,000 Ships — still in development, fans may not have to wait long to see just how closely this new knight’s story rhymes with their favorite Lady of Tarth.