Game Of Thrones' Worst Father-Son Relationship Was Very Sweet Behind The Scenes

Westeros is filled with lousy fathers: Robert Baratheon, Balon Greyjoy, and the Wilding Craster who sells his sons (born from daughters he rapes) to the White Walkers. Worst of all, though, is Tywin Lannister (played by Charles Dance in the "Game of Thrones" TV adaptation). He treats none of his three children well; Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Cersei (Lena Headey), the visage of a perfect knight and queen but without the hearts of them, are vessels for the glory of House Lannister, no more. Tywin is so incapable of understanding the twins have wills of their own that he would not believe their terrible, incestuous secret when he heard it from Cersei's own mouth.

If Tywin at least prizes his two eldest children, he has only scorn for his youngest, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage). Tyrion had the misfortune of being born a dwarf while his mother Joanna passed in childbirth. His father loathes the very sight of him, seeing Tyrion's existence as an awful trade: the love of his life for an embarrassment. When your son winds up shooting you with a crossbow as you sit on the toilet? Yeah, you've made a few mistakes raising him. 

In "Game of Thrones" season 3 premiere, "Valar Dohaeris" (adapted from Tyrion's first POV chapter in "A Storm of Swords") Tyrion has helped secured Lannister control of capital city King's Landing, and so asks that Tywin acknowledge him as his lawful heir as a reward. The elder Lannister responds with one of the most withering speeches ever written and performed, so powerful it's nearly identical in both prose and television:

"You are an ill-made, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors since I cannot prove that you are not mine. And to teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men will ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse."

Dinklage and Dance were some of the best scene partners in the series, so it is no surprise they had a much more positive working relationship than their characters did. Dinklage was a recent guest on "Hot Ones" (see below). During the interview, he recounted how Dance was more paternal to him than Tywin ever was to Tyrion. 

In a 2013 interview with NME, Charles Dance described working with Peter Dinklage: "The most adorable man [and] a wonderful actor. After all those scenes, I apologize to him every time. I have to treat him like sh*t."

"Hot Ones" host Sean Evans asked Dinklage about this. "I love Charlie Dance," replied Dinklage between buffalo wings, calling his former castmate "one of [his] favorite human beings." Every scene that Tywin and Tyrion shared was about the former viciously insulting and humiliating the latter, Dinklage explained, and it was hard to not get lost in the dialogue and characters when they as actors had such great material to bite into. So, "Dance made a habit of [...] between every take, he would come over and just gently touch me on the shoulder. We wouldn't hug it out because we had no time, but he would always make a point to just give me a little [touch]."

Lena Headey has also attested about the true nature of her and Dinklage's onscreen father; speaking to the Daily Beast in 2014, she noted that while Charles Dance may play a lion, he's really a "pussycat" offscreen.

Dinklage also agreed that Tywin was a "horrible human being," and called Tyrion killing him in "Game of Thrones" season 4 finale "The Children" both "a shame" (presumably since he and Dance wouldn't be working together anymore) and "one of the more classic death scenes in a TV show."

Indeed, Tywin's death is one of the most brutal murders in "Game of Thrones," but also one of the most well-earned. Tywin Lannister, the lion who would be king, a man obsessed with his legacy but no love for his actual family, dies sitting on a toilet.