Jim Broadbent admits he’s yet to catch up on Game of Thrones despite starring in Season 7

Jim Broadbent has confessed he has not finished watching Game Of Thrones despite joining the cast for the latest series.

The actor, 67, told the Standard he had not had time to watch the first six series of the epic fantasy saga before starting filming.

He said: “I hadn’t seen much of it before but I’ve got the full box-set now. Seventy hours of TV to watch. I didn’t have time to watch it all before … that’s going to be a long weekend or two.”

The penultimate series has been shrouded in secrecy to prevent spoilers leaking before its premiere in July.

Broadbent is now staying tight-lipped about his role, having previously let slip that he will be playing an “old professor character” in five episodes.

He said: “I can’t really talk about my role but I was just mighty impressed by the producers and the production.”

The actor will be back on the big screen next Friday, playing Tony Webster in the adaptation of Julian Barnes’s Booker prize-winning novel The Sense Of An Ending.

Playing a character who is forced to revisit his past when he finds a letter he wrote as a schoolboy, Broadbent, who was born in Lincolnshire, said he “recognised” himself.

“I loved the character, I recognised him — same age, same sort of cultural background, all-male circles at sixth form, a bunch of smart-arse boys together, you know,” he said.

“There’s an awful lot that I recognise about Tony Webster but he’s not me. We’re different enough to make it interesting.

“If it was very close to me I wouldn’t know how to do it really. It’s never been my area of work anyway really, I’m generally not cast because it’s a character that looks and behaves like me. It’s a character that looks and behaves a bit like me but isn’t like me.”

Broadbent, who has won an Oscar and two Baftas during a five-decade screen career, said he finds it easier to get out of character nowadays and prefers to have a laugh in between takes rather than stay in the role.

“I can shrug it off these days,” he said. “I think in my youth I had to get a bit more obsessed about it and not let it go.

“During the day there’s so much hanging around, you can’t stay in character. Some actors do but I read or do a crossword or gossip or muck about.”