With HBO staying so tightlipped on Game of Thrones season 8, we have to do a lot of reading between the lines and there is some interesting reading to be done in latest comments from the actor behind Gendry.

Joe Dempsie revealed in a recent interview with the Metro that he was filming Game of Thrones season 8 for quite a long time, long enough for it to raise the possibility that he has an important role in the final season.

He told the Metro that he had wrapped up filming for a different TV show, Deep State, back in September 2017 and then took a few weeks off before starting shooting his scenes for Game of Thrones season 8.

He then told the newspaper for the interview that took place earlier in June this year that: 'I only wrapped on that 3 weeks ago.'

That revelation ties in with a tweet on May 26 from Insider reporter Kim Renfro, who said Dempsie had told her he had finished filming GoT season 8 the previous week.

His filming schedule for GoT is tantalizing because it means he was filming Game of Thrones for around eight months, which is a very long time to be filming for one season of a TV show, even if we assume the filming wasn't continuous.

Dempsie's character Gendry is returning after a hiatus of several seasons. But he told Metro that it was always in the plan that his character would return.

'Funnily enough when I left the show after season 3 the plan was always to bring him back at some point. We just weren't sure when,' he said.

We can only guess for now as to exactly how important he'll be in season 8 and what kind of role he'll have, if any, in the show's finale.

And we won't get the answers to these questions until Game of Thrones season 8 returns to our screens in 2019.

The show is set to air on HBO and Sky Atlantic next year but no specific release date has been announced yet.