Game of Thrones star Richard Madden reveals how show saved him from eviction

Game of Thrones star Richard Madden has revealed the show saved him from losing his home.

The actor had been unemployed for almost a year before he was picked to play Robb Stark.

He did not have the money to pay his rent and faced eviction and moving back in with his parents in Scotland.

Madden, 32, had begun as a child actor on screen at the age of 11 but work had dried up as he tried to break into television as an adult.

The Bodyguard star, who was living in London as a 22-year-old, said: “I didn’t work for nearly 10 months.

“I was broke and I was literally on my last rent. I paid it and it was, ‘I am not just going to have to move out of this place but back to my parents house in Scotland.’

Richard Madden in Bodyguard (PA)

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“Then I got an audition for a show called Game of Thrones, which was very good timing.

“I got a call back and met the creators and, thankfully, they gave me the role of Robb Stark.”

He appeared in the first three seasons of the Westeros blockbuster before meeting his death in the Red Wedding episode – for which he was grateful.

Bodyguard writer Jed Mercurio (Getty)

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Madden, from Elderslie, Renfrewshire, told the Hollywood Reporter podcast: “I knew what was going to happen to me and when I was ‘not going to be there’ from day one that I signed the contract. It was five years of my life.

“I still look at my friends who are in the show now and they have been, what, 10 years at it? I think 10 years is too long to stay with any character as an actor.

“Especially because you age at a different time from them – so two months have passed in the show but actually two years have passed in your life.

“These things catch up with each other in really strange ways.”

Madden has previously admitted he got a minimum paycheck as the King in the North.

Meanwhile, Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio is planning a second series for next year, with Madden returning as Metropolitan Police specialist protection officer David Budd, a former soldier suffering from PTSD.