Gwendoline Christie and Sameul L. Jackson interview each other because reasons

What a world we live in. Star Wars comes ever closer to the hearts and minds of impatient fans everywhere, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 winds down its own press tour now that the movie’s been out a while, but the madness for Game of Thrones‘ sixth season is just beginning. And with that madness comes some rather unique opportunities. Like, I don’t know, a joint interview with Gwendoline Christie and Samuel L. Jackson for Interview magazine. Because why not?

It’s actually a surprisingly fun and engaging interview. Christie and Jackson mix in-depth interview questions with light joking and humorous asides. The meat starts with the discussion of how Christie decided to become an actress (“The freedom to be someone else entirely and be different versions of something. That’s what I loved…”) and the challenges she faced in getting early jobs in theater:

"I was told that that I was too tall. If a part came along where the character was tall, they’d maybe consider me to play that part, but otherwise there was nothing for me. I heard that a lot and I just sort of thought, like I did before, the world was an even more interesting place than the people who were making the decisions were perhaps interpreting it to be."

(Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Christie admits to “long spells of unemployment” before Thrones.) After discussing two significant people in her career—actor Simon Callow, her mentor, and director Terry Gilliam, who has cast her in both The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Zero Theorem—the conversation turns to Thrones and how Christie draws similarities and differences between herself and the Maiden of Tarth:

"There are some obvious similarities physically: we both have the same stature, she is a character who has felt marginalized due to the way that she looks and she is very androgynous. Those were all things that I could totally understand and connect with. The differences really lay in that before I started Game of Thrones, I was someone who wanted to lie on the sofa and eat chocolates and Brienne is a very physically active character who is incredibly strong, adept, and accomplished."

To which Jackson cheekily replies, “You sit in the chair for three hours to make you ugly because you are hot.” And that’s the story of how Director Fury recruited Brienne of Tarth to the Avengers. Finally, after a completely spoiler-free discussion of Star Wars, Jackson asks about Christie’s real-life heroes who inspire her:

"I’ve always thought Oprah Winfrey—that kind of really strong, pure determination. She’s one of those people, absolutely. There’s a lawyer called Melanie Hall in the U.K. and she is a brilliant Q.C. with a laser-like mind. Annie Lennox is very committed to creating change and empowering women and making a difference. She’s actually set up a charity that I’m involved with called Circle, which is a charity supported by women for women and girls about empowering girls and women and making a real change in the world."

She also mentions Simon Callow, of course. (Eight years of mentorship will do that to you; just ask J.D. on Scrubs.) This is certainly a different sort of interview than the usual “entertainment magazine content” approach, and it helped shed a little more light on one of Thrones most introspective characters, as well as the actress who portrays her.

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