HBO Max went for classy cool in Berlin Tuesday night, celebrating the launch of the streamer in Germany and the world premiere of HBO’s new Game of Thrones prequel series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with a blow-out bash that combined high culture with urban grit.
HBO took over the modern art museum at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, a stone’s throw from Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, for the event, staging the party like a cultural exhibit, with display crates featuring stations with Instagram-worthy backdrops inspired by HBO Max series and the film library of parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
There was a Superman-themed ice-sculpture vodka luge; a The Pitt-style emergency room, featuring the show’s real, freshly-minted best drama series Emmy, quickly shipped over from New York for the event; and a makeup section where guests could get glam blow-ups from Euphoria make-up artist Doniella Davy.
In the back, iconic German fashion photographer Ellen von Unwerth had set up shop, shooting portraits of the now even-more-glamorous attending talent.
Jen Weinberg, senior vp of talent relations, events and awards at HBO and Max, who organized the event together with Berlin-based creative agency Chest of Wonders, said the crate idea was born of necessity, as the museum was only available for a single day. All the individual sections were pre-built and shipped in their crates to the museum at midnight on Monday and had to be packed and shipped out by 10 am Wednesday morning to allow the museum to reopen to the public.
There were other locations for Industry, Game of Thrones, Sex and the City and even The Last of Us got a shout-out, courtesy of themed cans of (very tasty) high-end ravioli circulating among the guests. The food, it must be said, was extraordinary, provided by Berlin restaurants Beba, Bonvivant Cocktail Bistro, Horváth, and Pralinen, who have four Michelin stars between them.
Spray-painted HBO Max campaign slogans — in German — were mounted on the second floor, lending the event a gritty, Berlin feel (Personal favorite: “HBO Max: We Kill More Stars than Live on Other Platforms.”)
The party followed a red carpet at Berlin’s Zoo Palast theater for the world premiere of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the new Game of Thrones prequel series, which bows on HBO Max on Jan. 18.
The cast and crew were out in force — including series talent Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansell, Sam Spruell, Daniel Ings, Finn Bennett, Shaun Thomas, Bertie Carvel and Tanzyn Crawford — as well as HBO’s top brass, with Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, and JB Perrette, CEO and president of global streaming and games, in town to oversee the launch. HBO Max on Tuesday launched in Germany, Italy and a handful of other European territories, bringing the total HBO Max global footprint to more than 100 countries worldwide. The streamer will complete its European expansion in March with a launch in the U.K. and Ireland.
The Berlin crowd braved the chilly weather to cheer on the talent, but reserved the biggest cheers for GoT creator George R.R. Martin, who walked the red carpet in style wearing a dapper bowler hat.
Not to be outdone, child actor Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg in the series, dazzled with a rainbow-colored show suit, designed, he said, by the same tailor who designed the outfit his dad, British singer Jonathan Ansell, wore on the first season of The X Factor in the U.K. in 2004. (Ansell and his group, G4, came second in the show).
Ansell was a consummate professional as he worked the red carpet, marveling at being the second lead in a GoT series before he even entered middle school.
“I was 8 when I first started auditioning (for the series), and now I’m 11,” he noted. “So I’ve come a long way, and I’m just really excited to let the world see it.”
One of the hardest things about the show, Ansell quipped, was having to spend entire scenes staring way up at co-star Peter Claffey, who plays Dunk and is 6’5” —“actually almost 6’6”,” he corrects the height, essentially an entire torso larger than the wee Ansell. “I had to look up so much, I got neck pains,” Ansell said. “I had to go to physio to get it all fixed.”
The mood at the Seven Kingdoms premiere was light and slightly silly, appropriate for a series that is a deliberately smaller, more playful take on the GoT universe (there are no dragons, for a start).
“This is distinct and different to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, it’s a single POV, it’s a smaller, simpler story,” said series showrunner Ira Parker. “We’re a little grittier, a little more of the earth.”
Also, as critics have praised, a lot funnier. Humor, particularly of a scatological nature, runs throughout the show.
“I joke with my friends that I get paid to write fart and poop jokes,” says Parker. “But there really aren’t that many. Maybe five. That’s less than one fart joke per episode.”
Following the Seven Kingdoms red carpet, and across the street, HBO Max staged a public event to celebrate its upcoming Harry Potter series (which will bow on HBO Max next year). Berlin’s historic Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, was transformed into a spooky glowing magic castle, with Dementors (cleverly costumed drones) flying through the sky before finally being banned by a bit of white light and Patronus magic.
The German market is crazy for Harry Potter — the line for personalized Harry Potter wands at the HBO Max party was the longest — and the streamer is hoping Hogwarts fans will flock to its local service.
Alongside the Seven Kingdom‘s cast, a gaggle of German celebs lit up the HBO Max party, including Karoline Herfurth, Katharina Stark, Mania Gragus, Nhung Hong, Palina Rojinski, Jimi Blue Ochsenknecht, and Florence Kasumba.
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