I had to settle for sitting on a replica one at Comic Con instead. Rightfully it should have been my throne. I never quite knew to what extent he was joking. Is it true that Paddy Considine, who plays King Viserys Targaryen, got possessive about his Iron Throne? Yes, he didn’t want anybody else to sit on it. It moves and makes alarming noises, while a wind machine blasts you. You climb up a huge ladder on to this extraordinary machine, then get strapped in.

I can’t bear fairground rides, so it was slightly filling me with dread. How was the dragon-riding? Someone described it as like a bucking bronco meets a wild rollercoaster. Slightly as a joke but why is it the man who’s handed all this fabulous weaponry? Literally the next day, I was presented with this beautiful red leather whip and sent off to have whip lessons, which was cool. I was intensely jealous and said I wanted a whip. Steve was beside himself, like a kid in a sweet shop. One day, the props department gave Steve this massive double-sided machete, with an axe head on one side and a sword for chopping off people’s heads on the other. That feels like Westeros territory.ĭid you get to wield any weapons? Not this season but just wait.

All kinds of outmoded, corrupt, toxic systems are unravelling, imploding and being dismantled. With all the backstabbing and rivalries, Westeros feels a little like Westminster… It is rather depressingly resonant – not just with British politics but with what’s going on all over the world. I remember working on Pinter’s The Homecoming on Broadway and he described family life as “internecine warfare”. They basically show us our own political systems and our own family lives. I was in!īeneath the fantasy trappings, is it essentially about a family at war? Even though they’re a fantasy royal family and clearly a crazy bunch of people, these shows are endlessly fascinating. To top it all off, they told me my character was a dragon rider.

There is a line my character says early on: “Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend to the Iron Throne.” Lose the word “Iron” from that sentence and it feels all too relevant. Ryan and Miguel hooked me in immediately with the driving theme of the series. When eventually I was sent a real script, I loved the writing. We weren’t even told the title of the new show. To audition, we were initially sent a scene from the original Game of Thrones with the names changed. How did you land the role ? Everything was very secretive.

Game of thrones real life partners