In the BBC’s Bodyguard, created and written by Jed Mercurio — perhaps best known for tense, crime procedural drama Line of Duty — Game of Thrones alum Madden stars as police officer and PTSD-suffering war veteran David Budd, who is assigned as a protection officer to the U.K.’s controversial Home Secretary Julia Montague (played by Line Of Duty’s Keeley Hawes). While a divided government deals with a heightened terrorist threat in the country, Budd has his own demons to work through — and Montague doesn’t make his job any easier.

As the Home Secretary aims to introduce a new bill that outlines increased state surveillance, Budd grapples to protect her from those opposed to such legislation as well as the greater threat of domestic terrorism that pervades London and the rest of the country. Throw into the mix his own traumatic past and a young family to look after, and PPO (personal protection officer) Budd is in for a ride that makes the horror of Robb Stark’s Red Wedding look, well, still horrific, but also like another day at the office for the protection officer.

Originally broadcast in the U.K. in late August on the BBC, the show’s electric pace and edge-of-your-seat suspense kept audiences talking incessantly about the drama (and blowing up text threads on Sunday nights!), before tuning in with bated breath weekly, only to be thrown for another loop by the multitude of careening twists and turns, and perpetually unsure who to trust.

Ahead of the show’s Netflix debut, EW caught up with Madden — who also stars in next summer’s Elton John fantasy Rocketman — to learn more about his mercurial character, that (potentially!) explosive opening sequence, and whether David Budd would’ve been any good at protecting the doomed Stark family members.

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