'GoT' Almost Didn't Happen Because Of Amanda Peet

Life must get weird when you're married to one of the men who brought Game of Thrones from the page to the screen. I mean, first of all, his hair must be gigantic with all the plot secrets he's keeping in there. And that's not even taking into account all the behind-the-scenes wackiness that must have taken place trying to get the thing on TV in the first place! I'm sure this is a predicament that actress Amanda Peet knows well: After all, Amanda Peet is married to Game Of Thrones showrunner David Benioff. But, it looks like things almost turned out a lot differently for the world thanks to Peet: Apparently, when Benioff pitched the idea of GoT to Peet, she initially warned Benioff not to take on what would become HBO's hit fantasy.

Seriously.

Peet relived her terrible advice during an appearance on Conan on Monday:

I thought it was a terrible idea — terrible....Just silly, it's like Dungeons & Dragons but real with real people.

Peet's statement got quite the aggressive, uncomfortable silence from the audience — lets be fair, knowing what the show is now, it sounds awfully silly — but given the fact that she said it before anyone knew how genius the concept was, she's got a point. TV has been hardly hospitable for high fantasy fare, and many people forget how big of an anomaly it was that Game Of Thrones hit as big as it did. Dungeons & Dragons with real people doesn't sound so bad to me, but a lot of fans started off quite skeptical of the show.

Game Of Thrones managed to bring a Lord Of the Rings-type fantasy right into people's homes and, thus, into the mainstream — and that's a pretty rare thing to be embraced by the masses when genre fare is still largely sidelined and sold to niche audiences.

So really, Peet's advice wasn't that bad...though we should still be pretty damn grateful that Benioff didn't take it. And hey, she came around! Now, she won't even let her husband spoil her on what's coming up next:

See, I'd make him tell me everything.

Image: TBS