Game Of Thrones Actor Harshly Condemns Show’s Creators For Low Pay

One Game Of Thrones actor has a bone to pick with showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and how they treat their cast. In an interview with StarTrek.com, Alexander Siddig, who played Doran Martell, talked about the drawbacks of being on a show like Game Of Thrones. Specifically, when you're not a lead. "From an actor's point of view, professionally you don't want to be on a show like that for too long — unless you are one of the top leads who originated the show — because your schedule gets kind of messed up," he said. The actor, who played Dr. Julian Bashir in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, then continued by saying, "You don't earn as much as you would if you were doing another show because they're Game of Thrones, and they don't have to pay anyone." Siddig didn't elaborate on what that meant, but it was reported back in June by The Hollywood Reporter that five of the show's leads would be earning £385,000 per episode of the final two seasons. Siddig talked about how his character was unexpectedly killed off in the Season 6 premiere, despite him having a contract for four additional episodes. Siddig has a few explanations for why that could be, including that Doran's popularity might throw the show off course and force the showrunners to shoot more scenes in Dorne. "Maybe they thought, 'Well, let's prove that we're going to stray from the books. We're going to do something else, and he will be our first example of that,'" he said. "Or maybe I just screwed up. Maybe I said the wrong thing to the wrong person." Siddig did tell the website that he felt the show purposely misinforms the audience. "They give them tidbits to send them in wrong directions," he said, even questioning if HBO purposely leaked the first episodes of last season to get people talking. "I am almost positive that those four episodes were leaked by HBO themselves," he said. "So there is an enormous amount of spin going on. I can’t tell you that for sure; that’s just my opinion, but it’s games; everybody’s playing these games." But, in the end, Siddig did say that his death on the show was actually a blessing in disguise. "Being on it at all sticks, and everyone goes, “Oh, the guy from Game of Thrones!'" he said. "It doesn’t really matter that you weren’t on it very long." HBO has not commented on Siddig's claims. Neither has Weiss nor Benioff.