by C. A. Taylor
The construction of the cave was a spectacular feat of engineering. To ensure realism, molds were made of the actual Marble Arch Cave walls. First, four coats of silicon were brushed over approximately seven-foot-square areas. The silicon was then covered in plaster and pulled away, leaving behind an immaculate, residue-free, undamaged wall, while creating a perfect copy of every texture, fissure, and cleft in the rock face. These multiple rock patterns and shapes gave the construction team plenty to play with.
Based on the art department design, a clay model was made and cast in plaster. This was marked with a grid that delineated as many as a hundred sections, which were scaled up into “stations” for the full-size cave. Casting plaster the consistency of cream was poured into the rock molds and stiffened with the addition of a jute scrim, then pushed into the mix before timber was added to hold the heavy pieces firm. The rock molds were turned and manipulated to avoid repeating patterns on the cavern walls, and they were fixed together and coated with no less than eight different paint effects to match the Marble Arch rocks. The set painters created the lichen and even the condensation running from the walls.
* * *
RORY MCCANN (SANDOR CLEGANE/THE HOUND): The amount of times that I have gotten in trouble for kicking a rock or stone because they seemed real is a compliment to the Art Department and Greens. It looks so authentic inside, with the moss and lichen on the walls. It’s not much of a step to believe you are truly in a cave and surrounded by the fires and the Brotherhood, looking old enemies in the eye.
— the fight —
episode 305: “kissed by fire”
Thoros uses the power of the Lord of Light to heal Beric.
* * *
With any fight sequence, preparation is key. When fire is involved, it is doubly important. Stunt coordinator Paul Herbert and his team were used to working with fire, but safety was paramount. “It can catch you out if you aren’t paying attention,” he said. “But fire tends to make people sit up and take notice.” The duel between the Hound and Beric Dondarrion involved swinging flaming swords at each other with some force, requiring total trust between the actors.
* * *
RORY MCCANN (SANDOR CLEGANE/THE HOUND): Training for this fight required the most training I have ever done. A sword fight with a flaming sword hasn’t really been attempted before and we really had to be on our game for that. It took about three weeks, every day to get to where we wanted to be. The fight had to be filmed in sections as the blade would only stay lit for about two minutes. I find that in general the weight of my costume makes a long day exhausting, but the heat of the cave made it even harder to breathe. As soon as take was done, I had to get out and cool down and get air. Richard [Dormer] and I rehearsed, but it all changed when the fire was lit. The sword seemed to grow three feet when the flame appears and it was amazing fighting it. With the sound and the whirling steel with a fire trail, it completely changed the dynamic of the battle. Richard said it was like fighting a crazed King Kong—quite the compliment.
BRYAN COGMAN (CO-PRODUCER AND WRITER): I just assumed the flames would be added later by VFX—I never dreamed the two actors would fight with real fire! Our special effects and stunt teams outdid themselves with that one. And we had both actors going full speed in heavy armor, with a real flaming sword, Rory with makeup on half his face, Richard only using one eye (the other covered with a patch) and they’re acting up a storm! It was thrilling to watch—easily one of my favorite sequences in the series.
— darkest moment —
episode 303: “walk of punishment”
“You’re nothing without your daddy. And your daddy ain’t here.”
—Locke
David Benioff offers Nikolaj Coster-Waldau some direction before the cut.
* * *
Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) has been instructed by Catelyn Stark to escort the prisoner Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to King’s Landing, where it is hoped he is to be exchanged for Catelyn’s daughters. However, the journey nearly comes undone when the pair is captured by Locke (Noah Taylor) and his men. Ostensibly Bolton bannermen, they intend on returning Jaime to Roose Bolton and the King in the North. But first the men decide to pull Brienne into the woods to rape her. To save Brienne, and himself, Jaime manages to distract Locke and the others with a lie about the Sapphire Island, which he claims is named for its valuable gemstones. As usual, Jaime expects his charm and status to win the day, making what happens next doubly shocking.
* * *
DAVID BENIOFF AND D. B. WEISS (CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS AND WRITERS): We knew this was going to be a moment that really caught people unawares, and more important, a moment that is the beginning of one of the most extreme 180-degree turns we’d ever seen in a character (having read the books). This is where losing a piece of himself puts Jaime Lannister on the unlikely track to sympathy. Which is all a way of saying that we knew we’d better get it right. Luckily for us, the combination of our DP Matt Jensen, AD Mark Taylor, and our amazing stunt team helped us make it everything we’d hoped for and more.
Everyone brought their best to those two nights. Noah had an unusual challenge: he’s a very smart guy playing a very smart guy pretending to be a dumb, malleable guy, right until the last minute. He did it so perfectly—watching the scene again, you can really feel the resentment of Jaime’s entitlement simmering under the surface from the beginning of their encounter in a way you don’t quite catch the first time through. And Gwen is really the catalyst for the scene—it’s her jeopardy that causes Jaime to put himself in jeopardy and then step over the line. Her last look to him . . . we love that look. She knows there’s something wrong with this set-up, and he’s too blinded by his own certainty in himself to get it until it’s too late.
And Nikolaj most of all. To play not knowing, not getting it, being too smart by half . . . doing it all that well is impressive enough on its own. Doing it that well when you have a flu that’s almost bad enough to shut down the show and send you to the hospital, that’s another level entirely. He was graceful and perfect under horrible conditions. Jaime would be proud.
Locke takes Jaime’s greatest weapon.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (JAIME LANNISTER): Some actors don’t like to know what is coming. For me, it was helpful to know what to aim for. When I was first cast as Jaime, [David Benioff and Dan Weiss] told me the story up through season three. It was so great to know that there was this huge moment coming that would make him question everything about who he is. It meant I could go further in the early seasons.
We were shooting over two days, and as weird as it sounds, I was lucky because I got really sick on the second day. The last thing we were shooting was me being pushed over the stump, and I was really out of it and just felt like vomiting the whole time. There is almost no acting involved. I was being held down, plus Noah is a really scary guy—usually when you are doing a fight on a film, you have to miss by about ten inches, but they had constructed this special arched blade that curved around my arm. Noah just went for it.
Losing his hand was a pivotal moment for Jaime. He really didn’t see it coming from Locke. I loved working with Noah. I just thought he was magnificent. I think Locke has something that I have, which is an issue with entitlement, with people who come from privilege. Jaime refuses to even acknowledge that Locke has the upper hand, and Locke does something rash. It’s a huge fuck-you really—he doesn’t care about Jaime’s father. Jaime has stepped into something he doesn’t really understand.
For me as an actor and for Jaime as a person, I think it was the best thing that could possibly happen. I think it forces him to readdress his preconceived notions and rebuild who he is.
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (BRIENNE OF TARTH): I think Brienne feels responsible for what happens to Jaime. It’s as if he used his one get-out-of-jail-free card to save her and she knows it. I don’t think she’s ever had anyone save her from anything. It’s at this point that she stops protecting him as part of he
r mission and starts protecting him out of care.
JAIME AND BRIENNE
Jaime Lannister:
“My sword hand. I was that hand.”
Brienne of Tarth:
“You have a taste, one taste of the real world where people have important things taken from them, and you whine and cry and quit. You sound like a bloody woman.”
Enemies fighting on the same side.
There is no question that one of the most important relationships in season three is between Jaime and Brienne. They begin as enemies, but when a grudging respect starts to grow, they find themselves questioning everything they once thought about each other. In one of the most revealing scenes of the series (in Episode 305, “Kissed by Fire”), Jaime tells Brienne the true story of how he gained his dishonorable reputation as the “Kingslayer.”
In Harrenhal, after the disgraced Maester Qyburn treats the deadly infection on Jaime’s severed wrist, Jaime enters the bathhouse. Already in the waters, Brienne is initially horrified that Jaime is determined to share her pool. Further, upon seeing Brienne’s look of contempt, Jaime decides to share something even more personal—the origin of his nickname.
As a teenager, when Jaime was in the service of Aerys Targaryen, the country was in revolt. The “Mad King,” in his mania, was burning those who displeased him, for he had an obsession with wildfire. When Aerys realized he was losing the war against Robert Baratheon, and a Tywin Lannister–led force was sacking the city, Aerys ordered Jaime to kill his own father, and he told the pyromancer to set the city alight using wildfire he had hidden under King’s Landing. To save the city, Jaime killed the pyromancer and the Mad King, slitting Aerys’s throat after stabbing him in the back. At this moment, Eddard Stark stormed into the throne room and drew the worst possible conclusion—that the king had been betrayed by one of his sworn protectors.
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (BRIENNE OF TARTH): Brienne is this incredible figure, developing this physical strength to overcome the negativity of a male-dominated environment, focusing on her own power—and moreover, to the good of all.
Jaime is the epitome of what she despises, and he tortures and torments her. She has huge contempt for him, no respect at all. He’s the Kingslayer, about the least honorable thing you can be, and he seems to show no remorse. Yet he ends up saving her life twice.
ALEX GRAVES (DIRECTOR): They have nothing in common, other than who they are. They are knights, and they understand something about that. He has protected people he cares about ruthlessly. She is an honorable knight, and he would like to be an honorable knight, but he can’t be because he had this awful traumatic thing happen to him.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU (JAIME LANNISTER): At the beginning, Jaime has no respect for Brienne. Jaime believes he will kill her eventually. Instead, she reminds him throughout that journey of things that he lost. Really, he’s reminded of who he was at sixteen. What he did [when he killed the king] was quite amazing, firstly to be put in a situation like that and then to still make the right decision, even if it was the most brutal one. Afterward, to be castigated like that—well, that is a real heroic moment. When he tells Brienne the real story, of the potential for genocide, it’s probably the first time he has spoken about it.
Prisoners of Locke, now equals.
That’s the thing with Brienne; she has earned that trust. He has never met anyone who hasn’t tried to better their own circumstances. They kept each other alive. There is a very deep root of respect and understanding. They are both great soldiers. Honor is very important when you have that outlook.
I don’t think he’s ever shown weakness, but she sees it. When she berates him at the fire, it’s because she cares. She’s so honest and earnest. He’s connected to himself in a way that he cannot undo even when he gets back to King’s Landing. He knows what is right and wrong.
BRYAN COGMAN (CO-PRODUCER AND WRITER): It was an incredible gift to be able to adapt that scene, a hugely important scene for Jaime and for the series because it begins the redemption arc of one of the story’s central “villains.” When season one begins you think you’re watching a story about the good Starks versus the evil Lannisters. But it becomes much more complicated than that—in many ways, by season four, the Lannister siblings have become the series’ protagonists! (Of course, a lot of that has to do with a lot of the Starks being dead . . .) This scene finds Jaime and Brienne at their most vulnerable, and I think, having carried this burden for so long, Jaime just can’t keep it in anymore. He senses a purity in Brienne and a compassion in her that prompts his confession to just come pouring out of him. He and Gwen and director Alex Graves worked on the scene for a few hours, poring over every line and beat. We shot the scene late into the night—it was very intense and exhausting for all involved. There’s the nudity, of course, but also the extreme emotional availability required of the actors and the technical difficulty of shooting in that bathtub for hours and hours. The exhaustion and raw vulnerability you see onscreen are quite real. Nikolaj and Gwen really gave everything they had.
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE (BRIENNE OF TARTH): I don’t think he’s been closer to anyone before who never wanted anything from him. I think when humans are confronted by someone like that, it’s impossible not to fall in love with them.
She is a selfless character, and in an odd way that runs parallel to Jaime. There is this moment in the bathtub scene when she realizes that he has done this thing—he has sacrificed for the good of thousands of people.
Objectively, I don’t think anyone knows the moment that they fall in love. I’m not sure either Jaime or Brienne know themselves well enough for that. She doesn’t understand why he rescues her from Locke. After his confession, I’m still not sure she trusts him, but she understands him.
— marriage of tyrion and sansa —
episode 308: “second sons”
“We’re all strangers, and we’ll always be strangers, and there is no use pretending otherwise. But I promise you one thing, my lady. I won’t ever hurt you.”
—Tyrion Lannister to Sansa Stark
The unhappy couple.
* * *
In King’s Landing, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) has been cast aside by King Joffrey in favor of Margaery Tyrell, who comes from a rich and powerful house the Lannisters want to be allied with. While a de facto prisoner, Sansa briefly hopes that she might still escape King’s Landing when the possibility arises that she will be married to the alluring Loras Tyrell. This is arranged by Lady Olenna Tyrell, grandmother to Loras and Margaery. Lady Olenna is a strategist of the highest order, and she intends to secure the future of her house with another strong alliance. This plan displeases Tywin Lannister, who prefers that Sansa, the potential heir to Winterfell, remain tied to the Lannisters. Tywin swiftly arranges two new marriages—Loras will wed Cersei Lannister, despite Loras’s rumored homosexuality, and Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) is forced to take Sansa as his unwilling bride.
* * *
Tyrion cloaking Sansa during their wedding ceremony in the Great Sept of Baelor.
MICHELLE MACLAREN (DIRECTOR): These actors know their characters very well. I like to see what they have prepared and what they want to do. With this scene [of Tyrion and Sansa’s wedding], I talked to Peter about the humiliation of this moment, of what Joffrey is doing to Tyrion. With Sophie, it was more about what it means to Sansa when the septon says this is for life. Not too long ago, Sansa thought she was marrying Joffrey and was going to be queen. Then she learns the truth and thinks her escape might be with Loras—she doesn’t understand his true desires, but she likes him, and then this happens. Sansa’s wedding should be the best day of her life, but in many ways it’s the worst. Ironically, though, the person who has been nicest to her is Tyrion. Ultimately, she really grows up in that moment.
Then you have all these other great beats—a look between Olenna and Tywin when you know they have plotted this. Cersei Lannister won’t even look at Sansa. She couldn’t care less—she’s bored by the w
hole thing and is there only because of her father.
There is a moment in The Sound of Music when the camera comes up and over Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews when they are walking down the aisle. When I was a kid, I wanted a wedding like that, because that’s the fairy tale. That’s the dream. When I got the script in L.A., I knew I wanted that shot, to shoot it like it was the fantasy when really it’s the nightmare. It was so important to me that it would be like a romantic dream wedding, and for Sansa it should have been—all the elements are there, and it’s still just wrong.
PETER DINKLAGE (TYRION LANNISTER): I don’t know how hard Tyrion fights the wedding in the end, I think he recognizes that it puts him in a better position to look after Sansa and there is no denying the marriage helps his position in court. It’s also true that she has a huge amount of appeal, which he is not immune to, but honor is incredibly important to him in this situation. Tyrion is a man with clear appetites, but he is also in love with Shae. It’s an incredibly complex situation.
SOPHIE TURNER (SANSA STARK): It’s great to have the relationship between Tyrion and Sansa where (from her point of view) there is a sort of love, but it is based on trust and respect rather than something sexual. He’s protecting her from Joffrey, but he also recognizes a strength in her that other people may have missed.
