A screen grab from HBO's "Game of Thrones" of a severed head resembling former President George W. Bush. COURTESY
Don’t look now but the last head on the left in "Game of Thrones" looks suspiciously like George W. Bush. And that’s because it is.
That's what the creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss confirmed in a DVD commentary from the first season of the hit HBO series.
The head, sporting a heavy wig, appeared in two scenes in the 10th episode of the fantasy series which is known for its ultra-violence.
"The last head on the left is George Bush," says Benioff in the DVD commentary.
"George Bush's head appears in a couple beheading scenes," adds co-creator Weiss in the commentary.
But the decision to use the head was a matter of necessity, not politics, says Benioff on the DVD.
"It's not a choice, it's not a political statement," he said. "We just had to use whatever heads we had around."
In the episode, King Joffrey takes the character Sansa Stark to look at at several heads on spikes, including that of her father. The other head in the scene is a likeness of the former United States president, according to thewrap.com.
Benioff and Weiss issued the following statement Wednesday:
“What happened was this: we use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.
"In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
HBO's reaction to the situation was swift.
"We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
The series, based on the George R.R. Martin books, returns for its third season next spring.
