When Game of Thrones wrapped up its eighth and final season last month, it felt, for fans who had followed the show’s rise to one of the biggest of all times, a bit like letting go. Imagine, then, what it was like for the actors who had brought its intrigue, heartbreak and drama to life.

“I pretty much experienced every emotion it was possible to feel,” John Bradley, who played fan-favourite Samwell Tarly across all eight seasons, told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to react at the end, because I tried to protect myself from feeling the emotion of it, but I was really genuinely very sad. It’s been my entire career: I’m 30 suddenly and the thing I’ve associated my entire life with it for nine years isn’t there anymore.”

Mr Bradley and his co-star Pilou Asbæk, who played the charismatic villain Euron Greyjoy, were in Malta last week to attend the opening of a new Planet Hollywood restaurant at Bay Street.

It was a first visit to the island for the pair, neither of whom had been involved when Game of Thrones had filmed much of its season in Malta, but the fans who thronged to a meet-and-greet and shared their passion for the show were a reminder for both of the sheer global scale of its impact.

Filming most of the show in Belfast with a largely local crew, Mr Asbæk said, it was often easy to forget the millions of fans around the world hanging on the show’s every moment. “But when we did the premiere in New York this year, they shut down a whole avenue for the fans: there were like 15 or 25,000 people, and you’re thinking, ‘holy shit, this is big’,” he said.

People say it didn’t end right, but I think, do you mean it didn’t end the way you wanted it to?

With the show’s last season, the intensity of the fan-base showed itself in a harsher light. Even as it broke all previous viewing records, the season came in for heavy criticism from fans unhappy with beloved characters’ ultimate fates or what they felt was rushed storytelling, and more than a million signing a petition for the season to be remade. The two actors, however, are sanguine about the backlash.

“You’d rather have the fans hate something then not giving a shit,” Mr Asbæk said. “That means they’re invested in it. People have actually signed things because they’re so angry – that’s passion! The worst thing is if they don’t care. And in two years, this will stand up. Because it’s brilliant.”

For Mr Bradley, the criticism is a compliment to the quality of the storytelling and the psychological depth of the characters. “People don’t have that much intensity about many things,” he said. “For many people it’s like their sport: they have their favourites and the people they’re rooting for and if the people they’re rooting for lose, they’re furious. We’re very grateful for that level of investment.”

Similarly, he said, frustration over characters not getting the death or ending ‘they deserved’ missed the point of what Game of Thrones had always been, where poignancy and heartbreak often came precisely from people not getting what they deserved.

“You don’t make something for people not to like it, but this show has never given people what they want; it’s always challenged them,” Mr Bradley said. “You don’t want people to be ambivalent. It’s all about the debate and the conversation and the analysis.

"I think all the conversation around this season had to happen. People say it didn’t end right, but I think, do you mean it didn’t end the way you wanted it to? And if it did end the way you wanted it to, where’s the joy in that? Where’s the challenge?”