Finn Bennett Talks A Night Of The Seven Kingdoms

For over 10 years, the British-Irish actor has made a name for himself on-screen playing “really lovely boys”. However, as the newest peroxide-topped Targaryen villain – in HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – he has pulled off a career heel-turn in one of TV’s most storied fictional arenas.

If there’s one thing unmistakable following an hour of conversation with Finn Bennett, it’s that he’s a proud Hackney boy. “I would probably never really say I’m from England,” the actor explains. “I would say I’m from Hackney, London.” His parents set up home in the borough prior to the 26-year-old’s birth. “I guess they were the original Hackney hipsters,” he quips.

Bennett knows his locale’s street plan (not to mention culinary wonders) like the back of his hand. “What road do you live on?” he asks keenly when I mention my own Hackney residency, before a staccato “Yep, yep” as he instantly locates my answer. Additional clarification or anchoring to a nearby landmark is superfluous for this walking, talking A-Z. The once-working-class and immigrant heartland has become a paradigm for the gentrification of the English capital in recent decades. Bennett has witnessed that reconfiguration first-hand. As a child, the perceived “street cred” of his postcode – prior to the influx of artisan coffee and organic grocery stores – was a defining appeal for him. In adulthood, he loves, instead, the multiculturalism that has managed to endure. “What different communities from different parts of the world have brought to Hackney… it would be nothing without it.”

On this particular Tuesday, however, he’s an overseas ambassador for the area’s credentials, connecting with Man About Town from the Toronto apartment of his girlfriend and fellow actor Anna Lambe. He’s wrapped up a European press tour for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in the days prior – the Game of Thrones spin-off, currently airing, that introduces Bennett as the Targaryen dynasty’s newest peroxide-topped villain, Prince Aerion. Adapting George RR Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, the second Game of Thrones offshoot (following the 2022-premiered House of the Dragon), lands in Westeros a century before the fictional events that made household names of the likes of Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke in the 2010s. It’s currently 11 am and a valiant day-off to-do list is underway for Bennett: breakfast, gym and the sending of VAT information to his accountant. Bennett’s now perched at a dining room table, affable but attentive, sporting a windowpane teal shirt, one button undone, his textured copper locks air-drying, and a biro sat in a newsreader’s grip between his fingers.

Finn wears jacket, shirt, trousers, sunglasses SAINT LAURENT

Time away from his beloved Hackney has become customary for Bennett since his 2024 breakthrough, starring alongside Jodie Foster, in HBO’s True Detective: Night Country. He only had four days back home in between the eight-week shooting schedule, later that year, for A24’s enveloping Iraq frontline drama Warfare and his arrival in Belfast for his induction into the world of Westeros. The Northern Irish capital has long been a home for the filming of the adaptations of RR Martin’s high fantasy novels. And, incidentally, it’s an ancestral home for Bennett, too. His father, Top Boy and The Day of the Jackal creator Ronan Bennett, was born and raised in the city.

It meant that leaping into the unknown career territory of his biggest role yet, incidentally, brought Finn closer to his origins. There was, on the surface, a fish-out-of-water quality to Finn’s reintroduction to his paternal roots; however, à la Derry Girls’ James “the wee English fella” Maguire – famously transplanted across the Irish Sea for the first time to live with his aunt and cousin, mild manners and southern English lilt in tow. Unlike James, this wasn’t Finn’s first experience of the country, but his last preceded his teenage years. Cultural catch-up in full swing in between filming, Ronan connected Finn with an old friend who coaches hurling, the ancient Gaelic stick-and-ball field game still played across Ireland and its diaspora in the 2020s. On a day off, Finn made his way to St Enda’s club in the north of the city to watch one of the team’s matches. “It was the most violent period of sport I’d ever come across,” he says, still incredulous. “These were men just whacking each other with sticks. It was brilliant. I loved it.”

After the game, Finn indulged in a post-match refreshment at the members’ bar. “I bought two pints of Guinness, and I sat down,” he recounts. “I was getting funny looks. They obviously were like, ‘Are you sure you’re in the right place?’” One man, however, held his gaze for longer. “He was looking very intensely at me,” Finn says. He approached Finn, “And he said, ‘Is your dad Ronan?’” Finn answered yes. “He was like, ‘I’m your third cousin. My name’s Billy, and this is my brother.’” Contrary to those misplaced feelings of alienation, Finn appeared to be surrounded by family and roundabout local connections in abundance. He spent the day with them. “People were showing me their babies and being like, ‘This baby’s related to you.’ The way that I was welcomed with open arms into a family that I don’t have much of a connection with anymore was so moving.”

It was an optimal moment to happen upon familiarity, as, when on the clock, the world of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was testing his scope for acclimatisation. Since the audition process, the role of Aerion required Bennett to extend belief beyond his perceived limits of his capabilities. “I went in [to my audition] being like, ‘This is so not for me.’” Not because he didn’t want the part, he hastens to add, but because he just didn’t feel that it was within his range. “I’d been rehearsing the side that they sent out to me, and I was a little bit disheartened. I made up my mind to go into the audition, and if they had notes, I’d respond to the notes and then move on.”

Finn wears top GUCCI

When the role, to his surprise, was secured, the transition straight into the project’s production from Warfare – a combat drama but “a whole different kettle of fish” – would prove the next test of mettle. “Warfare was so hyper-realistic,” Bennett explains of the 2006-set picture that gave viewers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a surveillance mission conducted almost completely in real time. “There was virtually no acting involved. We had the training, and the training was everything we put into the performance. I did no acting for eight weeks while I was doing Warfare. It was scary. It was intense. It was visceral. Jumping from that into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was difficult.” The genre change required the flexing of different performance muscles. “Fantasy period dramas are heightened,” Bennett explains. Not to mention, there was ye olde dialogue, chivalric disciplines and horses to contend with in this new Medieval reality.

In the filming schedule’s early days, “There was a moment of, ‘Have I forgotten how to perform?’” Bennett admits – a feeling compounded and confused by the fact that Aerion is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ main antagonist, marking Bennett’s first experience of playing a villain. “I guess there is the added thing that if you’re a villain, you don’t like what you’re doing because it feels nasty,” Bennett says. Aerion, indeed, holds up against the worst of his family’s offenders. “You loosened all my teeth, so we’ll start by breaking out all of yours,” he asserts to protagonist Dunk (Peter Claffey) in Episode 3, when the hedge knight retaliates against Aerion’s attack of puppeteer Tanselle Too-Tall (Tanzyn Crawford). “Aerion’s just vain and cruel,” summarises noble knight Ser Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas) in the same episode, after reflecting earlier about Aerion and his lineage of rulers – “Every pale-haired brat they saddle on us has been madder than the last.”

The Warfare transition aside, Aerion’s depravity, in itself, was quite the tonal heelturn for Bennett’s portfolio. “I’ve always been a really lovely boy,” he smiles of his acting CV to date. He’s got over ten years of “lovely boy” screen roles to his name, if we’re counting, following his first proper professional TV job in the BBC’s 2015 Laurie Lee adaptation Cider With Rosie. The internet would have you believe that Bennett’s screen start came five years earlier in WW2 detective drama Foyle’s War; however, Bennett would like to correct the record. “That’s not me in Foyle’s War,” he laughs. “Actually, I’m really sorry, I’ve never watched Foyle’s War.” He’s not sure why the credit has found its way onto his IMDb. He tried to wipe it from his profile, but his efforts were, alas, to no avail.

Finn wears jacket, shirt, trousers, scarf DIOR

Bennett can’t have been in Foyle’s War, because at the turn of the 2010s, he was still head-down honing his performance chops at the Islington branch of the weekend children’s performing arts school Stagecoach. His sessions there would encompass one hour, respectively, of singing, acting and dancing. “I can’t sing to save my life,” he says emphatically. However, he was light on his feet. So much so, he took salsa lessons in addition. “I definitely would not wager money on me making a career out of [dancing],” he laughs, “but I get down.” There is a dream residing within him to one day appear on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Reality TV feels out of step with his current auspicious trajectory, but “I would just love to be taught by a professional, week in, week out.”

The acting component of Stagecoach more than came out on top for Bennett, as it did in his broader school timetable as well. “I was such a fucking drama queen,” he jokes of his teenage self. “I was definitely that kid who was always having to remind myself to be mysterious. I was very sensitive.” Witnessing the colleagues and collaborators of his Dad passing through his house also offered a regular window into his passion’s potential to become a job. “I suppose it is nepotistic, but the sorts of people that would come to the house were writers and sometimes actors and producers. To have that access to something is really lucky. I don’t know if I would have the career I have without that.”

He didn’t gravitate towards the traditionally academic corners of the school curriculum – “I was definitely not going to write any brilliant essays” – albeit he did secure a place at Queen’s University Belfast, of all places, to study anthropology. The subject choice was an impromptu decision made when scrolling through the course options online. “I selected the drop-down menu, and I went a) archaeology, anthropology… anthropology? I guess that sounds good, I’ll do that.” In the end, he sidelined higher education in favour of getting stuck into the world of employment instead, working in pubs and landscape gardening “like many boys in East London.” Eventually, in 2021, acting began to take precedence as he secured a role in Sky Atlantic’s Roman drama Domina. From there came turns in indie horror film A Banquet, HBO Victorian sci-fi The Nevers and Netflix spy thriller Black Doves. True Detective would be the most consequential gig, however, both given the visibility it earned Bennett and the hours he spent working alongside double Oscar winner Foster, on location in Iceland.

He still misses his character, Peter Prior, a junior police officer in rural Alaska. Given the similar gravity of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, will Aerion also be hard to leave behind? “I won’t really miss Aerion,” he says conclusively. “I’ll miss the wig. I’ll miss all of my friends on set,” including his equine colleagues – one of his favourite features of the job. “I’d get really distracted and take [the horse] for a walk while [the crew] were setting up shots.” He says people have asked him often if it was fun to play the villain. “There is a short-term catharsis to it,” he explains. “It’s nice to let out rage and aggression. But I think there is also something quite upsetting in that you’re constantly wondering if you’re doing a good job.” The villain, naturally, has one of the heaviest narrative burdens to shoulder in a story aside from the lead. “Especially in Game of Thrones, because you have some really, really special villains played by some really, really fantastic actors.”

Finn wears top GUCCI

The essence of Aerion’s malevolence is something Bennett’s “investigated” during his time with the character. “I feel like there is a hole in Aerion Targ,” he says. “Bertie Carvel, who plays Baelor, said something really beautiful while we were on our press junket: ‘Everybody has a family… And families are very complicated. [The Targaryens] are a family under tremendous amounts of pressure.’ I think Aerion feels that so profoundly.” There’s also the small matter of the generations-spanning monarchy that precedes him. “That must be a lot for a young prince,” Bennett reflects, before interrupting himself. “Sorry, this isn’t like a sympathy piece for the royal family… like the Windsors,” he laughs, “but that is something that I can justify with Aerion.” As Bennett shared in a 2024 interview with The Times, his dad used to tell him he could be anything he wanted in life, apart from a policeman or a Conservative MP, so one can presume that sympathy with society’s elite class is not something he was raised on. “My favourite character [in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms] is Dunk,” he clarifies. “He’s a man of the people.”

The prospect of Bennett losing his own everyman qualities seems unlikely, despite his profile continuing to soar. Not least, because he still can’t really comprehend why any of his current activities set him apart from any of his fellow citizens. “I always thought of myself as profoundly unremarkable,” he says. “Like when [my publicist] calls me up and says, ‘Man About Town wants to talk to you,’ I go ‘About what!? What questions could they possibly have for me?’” The jury of the 2025 Trophée Chopard award at Cannes Film Festival did find him exceptional – naming him the recipient of the storied honour handed out to one male and one female nascent actor every year. John Boyega won in 2016. Florence Pugh picked up the gong in 2019, as did Jessie Buckley a few years later. He’s cognizant of the potential for his talent to cause his life to balloon beyond comprehension, in a similar fashion to his winning predecessors. “There’s a huge amount of nerves as I anticipate the future,” he says. “I have no idea what’s going to happen next week, let alone next year. I think that’s sort of the deal you make when you decide you want to be an actor.”

Angelina Jolie presented him with the award last May, and as they both set out on parallel journeys to one of the festival’s later red carpets following the ceremony, she asked Bennett to join her in her car. “We had a chat for like 25 minutes,” he says. “I really liked that she did that. It was nice that she cared about who she was giving the award to.” How does one go about an impromptu carpool conversation when faced with an A-lister of Jolie’s stature? “I’m not Mr Smooth,” Bennett grins. “I’m not the world’s greatest conversationalist. So I was definitely pretty nervous.” Thankfully, they landed on her art collective, Atelier Jolie. “That was really cool.”

Finn wears jacket, top, jeans, shoes, belt GUCCI

That night, aside from a couple of flutes of Champagne, the celebrations for Bennett were truncated in favour of an early night. A morning flight out of the city due to filming commitments demanded it. “I was profoundly boring,” he says. Getting back to the job at hand seems an apt way to honour the quiet work ethic that had led Bennett to such a milestone, however. And, the spoils of the hours he put in last year will continue to emerge as he journeys beyond A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ conclusion in February. First, he’ll return to the small screen alongside Tahar Rahim in Sky Atlantic action-thriller Prisoner, and later in the year, will land back in the A24 machine, with horror film The Backrooms. Bennett, as a viewer, isn’t actually partial to the latter genre. “Not because I think [horror films] are like washed-up or anything,” he caveats. “I actually just find them quite stressful to watch.” However, he has high hopes for this one. “I remember [during filming] being like, ‘I think this could be really special.’”

A second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is confirmed, although cast details are currently unclear. There is one question that remains unanswered as he concludes his reflections on his first stint in Westeros. Would the peroxide locks of Aerion ever be for him? “Believe me, I’ve considered it,” he beams. “But I worry that it might make me look a bit Slim Shady.”

“I’ll see you down in Hackney”, he smiles as he logs off. Perhaps, if he’s persuaded of the merits of some quarter-life image experimentation, it will be with a new platinum do to boot. He fits in one more local recommendation – Homerton’s legendary boozer, the Adam & Eve. “It’s a great football pub,” he highlights. No matter where life takes him – Westeros and beyond – he’s ever the local champion.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms releases new episodes Sundays on HBO and HBO Max, and Mondays on Sky Atlantic and NOW. PRISONER is coming soon to Sky.

Photography

Kosmos Pavlos

Styling

Luke Day

Editor-in-Chief

Luke Day

Senior Editor

Andrew Wright

Art Director

Michael Morton

Production Director

Lola Randall