Why Ed Sheeran's 'Game of Thrones' Director Was 'Surprised' by Backlash and Thinks It's BS

The response to Sheeran's performance as a singing Lannister soldier was so vicious, that the pop star's Twitter feed briefly went MIA, with many speculating it was due to all of the hate he was no doubt receiving. Podeswa doesn't understand the backlash.

“I think Ed did a lovely job -- he's a lovely actor and a lovely person,” he told Newsweek, and argued the singer "was appropriate for the part because he needed to sing."

“If people didn't know who Ed was, they wouldn't have thought about it twice," he said. "The hoo-ha seems to be from things that are outside of the world of the show. In the world of the show he did a lovely job, and he looks like he belongs in that world."

In a different interview with The Daily Best, Podeswa said Sheeran took the light role "very seriously," "took direction well," and "could not have been nicer" during the shoot in Northern Ireland.

If fans were turned off by the lack of conflict or drama in the scene between the gang of soldiers and Arya Stark, Podeswa sees it differently.

"This is one of those lovely grace notes of the show -- of which there are a number. I think the scene with The Hound at the farmhouse was another one. And these scenes, they advance plot somewhat but they're not really plot-driven scenes. They're scenes about character, and about tone," he said. "What's lovely about that scene for Arya is she's been so hell-bent on vengeance -— the previous scene is her killing all the Freys —- that you forget sometimes that she's just a young girl who's trying to make her way through the world and is becoming a young woman. And here she is with a group of guys who should be her enemies. In any other instance, she might just kill them all. But there's a kind of unexpected identification she has with them because they're all young men, like her in a way. They're kind of thrown into this world and fighting somebody else's war. But they are just like a bunch of kids, as she is."

Although Sheeran is arguably the biggest music star to collaborate in some fashion with the HBO hit, other artists have too, including Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Will Champion from Coldplay and Sigur Rós.

But according to Podeswa, you never know how the "Game of Thrones" viewers will react to a cameo. Fans are so wrapped up in the fantasy world of Westeros that reminders of the real world might turn them off.

“I was quite surprised about the reaction actually, because I know he's very well known and a successful singer, but you're in the bubble of the show -- the cast are well known too, everybody is really well known," Podeswa told Newsweek said. “I think people interrogated it too much, they're bringing so much of his [superstar] presence into the think which is far beyond what anybody was thinking going into it. He is known to the producers of the show and some of the cast, and he's a gigantic fan of the show.”