Lena Headey & Natalie Dormer Go Deep Into GoT’s Epic / Horrifying Sequence

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SPOILER WARNING: This post discusses Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 10, The Winds of Winter.

Hhhhhhhnnnnnnng.

If there was any fear that Game of Thrones executive producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff wouldn’t manage to top the poetic bloodbath of last episode ‘The Battle of the Bastards‘, then the season finale, ‘The Winds of Winter‘, destroyed those harder than Cersei Lannister destroyed the High Sparrow.

The extra long episode gave us Cersei marking her words and burning the city – or at least, the Citadel – to the ground, the R+L=J theory confirmation, Jon Snow (now confirmed to be a Targaryen) being proclaimed King in the North, Arya Stark returning to Westeros and feeding Walder Frey‘s own sons to him, and Daenerys finally, finally crossing the narrow sea with her fleet, her dragons, and her Hand, Tyrion Lannister.

And it’s extraordinary that the long-awaited confirmation of Jon Snow’s heritage could be overshadowed by anything, but such was the power of that unbelievable opening sequence: the trial of Loras Tyrell, the murder of Grand Maester Pycelle, Lancel Lannister‘s agonising crawl through the jars of wildfire, Margaery Tyrell cottoning on to Cersei’s intentions, the dramatic evisceration of half the city, and Tommen‘s suicide.


“The ultimate dramatic moment in that sequence is when Margery turns to the High Sparrow. You end on a big close up of Jonathan Price‘s (the High Sparrow) face, who’s so expressive and can say so many things with so little, and you can see just the second before the whole place blows up that you can see that he goes, ‘Oh shit’,” said Weiss, speaking in a newly released behind-the-scenes extra.

The scene used 287 extras, not to mention fan favourites (Natalie Dormer), key villains (Jonathan Price), and broken angels that you want to hug but instead end up very very dead (Finn Jones).


“When you blow up a huge number of cast members in a single moment, you don’t want it to be completely random. It’s got to feel like it’s been earned and it’s gotta be something that feels like it belongs to the world,” said Benioff.

Dormer, who plays Margaery, spoke to E.W. about how her character exits that world.

“I thought it was really clever. I really did,” she said. “It’s not an echo of anything you’ve seen in the last six years. It’s truly it’s own unique moment to tie up what’s been a unique storyline about what’s happened in King’s Landing over the course of season 6. I thought it was an inspired choice. And it’s really interesting that I am given a moment of some vindication at the very end, which was the perfect way for Margaery to leave the show. She’s given a platform to say that she was right, as she always is. But because the power was taken from her, she couldn’t do anything about it.”

Throughout the last few seasons, Margaery has been sparring with Cersei, and each have been holding their own.

“The reason it all goes tits up is because Margaery wasn’t in control of the battle against Cersei,” said Dormer. “She had to hand the reins over to the High Sparrow and Cersei outplays him. By the end, Margaery is a victim of the High Sparrow’s incompetence. He underestimates Cersei and that’s something Margaery Tyrell would never do. David and Dan try to stay as close to human nature as possible.”


Lena Headey
, who plays Cersei, says she was shocked when she read that Cersei was going to end up on the Iron Throne.

“I couldn’t believe it, obviously. I was really shocked. I read it like nine times, like, ‘You’re joking!’ Then I’m left to wonder who’s going to take her down. She may only be there for a second. You do think, ‘What the f— comes next?’ Then we start again to play that game we all play each season, ‘Who’s going to be on the Iron Throne next?’”

She thinks Cersei will be on the Iron Throne for approximately two seconds – “it’s a moment of punctuation in the madness” – but reckons it should rightfully go to Arya or Tyrion.

This week saw Cersei reach new levels of madness – or, at Lena herself said in the behind-the-scenes clip, she is empty, “which is perhaps more dangerous”. The prophecy has come true, and all three of her children are dead.

“Which is horrible,” says Headey, “yet at the same time, she has her greatest moment of triumph. She gets rid of all her enemies, that she knows of anyway. Then there’s that moment where she goes to see dead Tommen and she thinks, ‘Ah. Well. I’ll [take the crown].’ It’s so wrong.”

And apparently, that final scene with Septa Unella – where Cersei closes the door on The Mountain beginning to rape her, grinning to herself and chanting ‘Shame’ – is the tamed down version.

“It’s so filthy,” she said of that scene. “It’s so great. Everybody’s witnessed what happened with the two of them. I don’t think people will be able to help going, ‘Yes!’ But it’s so depraved, it’s brilliant. The scene was meant to be worse, but they couldn’t do it. This is like the tame version. It’s pretty bad still though. I’d take being exploded in the Sept over that any day.”

Watch the behind-the-scenes of that sequence below:

And btw, that insanely haunting yet v. v. beautiful track is now on Spotify:

READ MORE: Cool ‘Game Of Thrones’ Shit To Note In Your Extreme Post-Finale Comedown.

Source: EW.

Photo: HBO.

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