Gwendoline Christie opens up about being female knight Brienne on Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones has gained a cult following for its complex power struggle among the people living on the continent of Westeros.

The powerful families are after the Iron Throne (forged from 1,000 swords) that will unite the region’s Seven Kingdoms.

The third season of HBO's fantasy series is scheduled to start airing on Philippine television this Saturday, April 20.

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In a world filled with dishonorable men and women, one androgynous person stands out for sticking to the ideals of knighthood.

Actress Gwendoline Christie brings life to the formidable female knight called Brienne of Tarth.

Standing 6'3" and protected by full body armour, Brienne is a towering presence. She is tasked to trade Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in exchange for the daughters of Catelyn Stark (portrayed by Michelle Fairley).

Through the help of Virtusio, PEP.ph was able to gain access to Gwendoline's February 2013 interview in London as she talked about her role.

In her interview, the British actress admitted that it is challenging to portray a knight whom she describes as someone "exclusively married to her moral code and her sense of honour."

Gwendoline also talked about cutting her hair and the physical demands of her role.


Question: Could you talk a little bit about how physically demanding the role is given the bulky armour you have to wear and how does it feel wearing all that armor and trying to get through a scene, or have you just got used to it?

Gwendoline Christie (GC): No, I don’t think I’ll ever quite get used to it. By the end of the filming period, you tend to have a bit more resistance, but I do quite a lot of physical training in order to not only portray the character with as much reality as possible, but also there’s a kind of resistance that you need to the elements around you when you’re filming.


The armor is really heavy. It’s often … they’ve done what they can to make it as comfortable as possible. But you know, in those times it would have been very painful to wear the armour, and you would have to have a lot of internal strength. And traditionally of course, armour used to really wreck the body and wreck the bones of the body, so all of those knights were incredibly fit and strong. And it just encourages you to really find the reality of what that woman is having to go through in order to pursue her sense of honour.


Q: Sense of duty and loyalty is hardly common today. Can you relate to it in anyway? It’s a character of few words but great authority, which is what I quite like about her.

GC: Well she speaks with her actions. Brienne of Tarth is exclusively married to her moral code and her sense of honour. And I think that maybe that is something which isn’t so prevalent today, but it’s actually very exciting to get back in contact with that as an actor and as a person because it’s something so alien from our everyday existence that to play someone that’s actually quite fundamentalist in the execution of their beliefs is a real challenge.


Q: We read, don’t know if it’s true, but we read that fan websites were pushing for you to be the part even prior to auditions, is that true?

GC: It is actually true, it is actually true. And I was really surprised by it. A friend of mine said there was something on the Internet about me being involved in an HBO show and so I had to look at the Internet and when I saw these forums with thousands of fans having this conversation, not only was it really exciting, but I also realised that more than ever I had a duty to the portrayal of this part because people held her in their hearts and felt very passionately about her. So there had to be a very strong and considered – a lot of work put into this part because a lot of people hold her with great affection.


Q: When you heard about these fan sites, did you know about the character and when you read about it thought, mmm, I can get my teeth into this one?

GC: That’s precisely what happened. As soon as I saw the part I started reading the books and I couldn’t believe that there was a part that I had always wanted to play, that was incredibly close to my heart, that would be a really big challenge, because so many of the elements that make up her character are those elements that I’m quite scared of in myself, and I wanted to play this part more that I’ve ever wanted to play any part. And then once I got the part the work really began.


Q: Can you remember what went on at that original audition, did you have anything into the input or whatever? It’s a very Joan of Arc look.


GC: I used to have very long hair and as I said before, chose to be very feminized. And I had an idea, I knew that the hair would have to be short but Kevin Alexander who is the brilliant hair designer onGame of Thrones, he and I had an extensive conversation, I knew I had to have my hair cut short, but I didn’t want it just to be an aggressive, masculine look.


I thought it would be more interesting to do something that was a combination of masculine and femininity and at the same time would make me look very androgynous. I thought it would be more interesting rather than making Brienne of Tarth an incredibly ugly, masculine, big woman, that she was someone that was actually just quite otherworldly, that there were many of those masculine elements, but she wasn’t by any means conventionally attractive, and that perhaps somewhere in there is a vulnerable woman, that if you could aesthetically get a sense of that, I thought that would be quite interesting. And I was very lucky in that that’s exactly what the entire creative team wanted too.


Q: If it’s up to you, maybe it’s up to your character Brienne, because you’re not after the throne necessarily, who would you like to see win the Game of Thrones?

GC: I obviously would like Daenerys [Emilia Clarke] to win the Iron Throne, and then the whole Westeros would return to kind of Eden-like environment. Probably won’t be the most interesting though.


This Emmy® and Golden Globe-winning HBO Original Series returns to Asia for its ten-episode third season on Saturday, April 20, at 9 pm. It will air exclusively on HBO and HBO HD with brand new episodes airing weekly at the same time. The new season of Game of Thrones can also be viewed on HBO GO, currently available to subscribers in Hong Kong.