'Game Of Thrones' Season 8 Is Officially Not Returning Until 2019

For fans who were still hoping for that slim possibility that "Game of Thrones" would be returning to HBO in 2018, the truth is unfortunately not what they're going to want to hear, as one of the show's biggest stars has officially confirmed the show would air its final season in 2019.

In an interview with Variety, Sophie Turner, who portrays Sansa Stark, confirmed the show wasn't going to be back in the next calendar year, when asked about her future with both the show and her upcoming "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" movie.

"Yeah, I'm really excited. 'Game of Thrones' comes out in 2019," she said.

Turner didn't explain any reasons why the wait would be so long, but did maintain that production was still going to be for a while as well, which can likely help explain the delay.

"We started in October, so we're maybe like a tenth of the way through," she said with a laugh. "No, no, we've got six or seven months left."

Turner isn't the first person involved with the show who has suggested the delayed start date, as other members of the cast have previously indicated that it was likely as well.

Iain Glen, who portrays Ser Jorah Mormont on the series, indicated back in September at Stockholm Comic Con that the series would be delayed because of how the story has changed. At the time, he stated that before, the characters were all spread out in different places, meaning the actors were also spread out amongst different countries, and filming could be done simultaneously. However, now that the characters are all growing closer to one another in the story, they are also appearing in the same scenes, which means less chance of simultaneous filming.

"We're all starting to occupy the same territory, we're all starting to be in the same storylines and so they can't [have two filming units] anymore," he said at the time. "I think that this last season will take much longer to shoot because they can only use one unit because we're all in the same sort of scenes."