Game of Thrones' John Bradley admits the show gave left him with stammer

Game of Thrones star James Bradley has admitted he suffered from anxiety and developed a stutter the longer he played socially awkward character Samwell Tarly.

Things got so bad that crew thought he had forgotten his lines, when really he just couldn’t get his words out.

James, 31, told the Blank Podcast how he tried so hard to become his character that he ended up taking on a lot of Samwell’s traits.

‘I got into this trap with Sam, I set myself traps, because he had a traumatic childhood and suffered a lot – and it manifested through a stammer and a twitch sometimes,’ James said.

‘There are takes of me where it felt like it would be five minutes where I am just standing with other the actors and I couldn’t speak and I just can’t get the words out and certain sounds would trip me up.

‘In one scene I came in first with Kit Harington and in the nicest way he said to me “can you come in a bit quicker?” so I can react a bit quicker and I was like “I can’t, I just can’t.”

He continued: ‘As lovely as the crew were, they assumed it was because I had forgotten my lines. It took me a while to get out of it and it went away over time.’

Unfortunately, John suffered with anxiety and a stammer when he was auditioning for new roles towards the end of Game of Thrones, which ended in May.

‘When I was in character I developed a stammer that I wasn’t in control of and it’s hard enough to be an actor anyway without having to read a script the night before you were going to do it and thinking that’s really going to trip me up tomorrow and the more you think about it the worse it gets,’ said John.

‘Towards the end of that journey, that stammer would turn up in non-Sam acting and I’d do auditions when I’d stammer because it just seemed like the default place that I went to when I acted.’

He added: I think people thought it was part of me but it wasn’t, but it was performance anxiety.’

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