I was a window dresser for Burton's once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you're a natch at this.

Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.

I've done a couple of fan conventions and [the fans] are legion. They're rather like Star Wars or Star Trek fans. We're very glad of the loyal fans - but it's a strange way to spend your life, dressing up like Star Wars. At least we change our costumes - I don't spend 40 years dressed up as Tywin Lannister.

I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.

A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?

People like Tywin Lannister are very much victims of that system, and of that environment: 'This is my place, don't threaten it'. I don't know how relevant that is to today. Politics is the most corrupt profession on earth, no matter where you are.

There is a huge fan base, they're very knowledgeable and very loyal. I was astonished - before I started working on the series I didn't know anything about Game of Thrones. I hadn't heard of the books. When it started going out, people were coming up to me in the street saying [fake cockney accent] "oh, Game of Thrones, f------ wonderful.