*Potential spoilers below"
The penultimate season of Game of Thrones is still a few months away but already we can't help but put together as many clues as possible about what we can expect.
We do know that Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent is joining the cast, and he has recently given some strong hints as to who he will be playing. In an interview with Screencrush the British actor said: "I’m a maester, an archmaester. I’m an old professor character."
He also revealed that he had scenes with John Bradley’s Sam Tarley. Those that follow the books will know that Sam's story has actually surpassed the TV show - the last time we saw him on screen his jaw was dropping in the enormous library of the Citadel.
In the books, however, Sam has met an Archmaester called Maester Marwyn, who is kind of a big deal in the Maesters world and the character Broadbent will play by the sounds of it. Sam tells Marwyn about the White Walkers and the Maester then leaves to find Daenerys Targaryen.
Broadbent also said that he "did five episodes", adding, "I did sort of one major scene in each episode."
He went on to say that all his scenes were shot in the studio in Belfast and that he wasn't involved in any CGI sequences, so we can assume that his character doesn't actually meet Daenerys and her dragons until the following season.
Unless showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss plan on going a completely different direction with his character, which as we've known from previous seasons, they aren't afraid to do.