Bryan Cogman says his road to "Game of Thrones" began in Montgomery County when he was a student at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland.
"Game of Thrones" received 24 Prime Emmy Award nominations Thursday. Cogman is a producer and writer for the show. He says he typically writes two episodes a season, including “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” which was nominated in an Outstanding Directing category.
“It really did start with people giving you opportunities at a young age,” Cogman said in a Skype interview from Belfast, where the HBO show is currently shooting its sixth season. “I was never going to be an athlete in any way, shape or form. I was okay academically. So, if I didn’t have these arts programs, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
Cogman explained Churchill had a strong drama department when he was a student there in the mid-1990s. “We not only did a fall play and a spring musical, we did student-directed plays and student-written plays. There wasn’t a month in a school year where I wasn’t working on something.”
After high school, Cogman went to The Julliard School in New York to pursue acting and screenwriting. He said many of his classmates there complained about how few artistic opportunities they had growing up.
“Those kind of programs are so important for young people," he said. "I don't know what I would have done or what I would have been if I haven't had those opportunities to do plays, write plays, learn about the arts and the history of the arts. It informed everything I do to this day. So, yea Montgomery County Public School arts programs!"
