One does not simply *kill off* an IRL Dame – she’s farewelled with the dramatic send-off befitting her grandiose title.
Enter Dame Diana Rigg, whose character Lady Olenna Tyrell aka the Queen of Thorns thanks to her barbed wit, was the latest ‘Game Of Thrones’ character to fall on the showrunners’ sword.
We bid Olenna farewell when Lannister forces captured the Tyrell home of Highgarden and Jaime himself offered her a pretty painless way out in the scheme of things: a liquid poison, which she drank without hesitation.
Now she’s gone (sob), showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have talked about her death with Entertainment Weekly, and how – by revealing to Jaime that she was responsible for Joffrey’s murder in her last, wheezy breaths just to have the last word over arch-rival Cersei – managed to win, even in death.
According to Weiss, Olenna is the only GoT character so far to enjoy such a victorious send-off.
What I love about the way she plays the scene is that even though you leave the scene knowing she’s soon going to be dead shortly after you cut to black you still feel like she won. She’s probably the only character to win her own death scene.
So how does one go about casting a Dame to play a Lady? You invite her to tea, says Benioff.
When we initially cast Diana Rigg, we met with Nina Gold, our legendary casting director, and we had tea with her. Dames don’t audition for you, you audition for them. And we loved her. She was funny, she was bawdy, she was everything we wanted for that character… She’s one of the best in the world and [Olenna’s final scene] is one of my favorites in the whole season. She really brought it.
RIP to everyone’s fave silver-tongued granny.
