Carice van Houten on the long arduous task of washing Jon Snow

When bringing a character back to life, one wants to make sure that they get the moment right. That goes for places that stage the resurrection of Jesus every Easter here on Earth, or the Game of Thrones production team when it staged the resurrection of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) this past Sunday. Jon Snow’s resurrection scene in “Home” was a long one—it involved a lot of angles on Carice van Houten (Melisandre) washing Jon Snow’s body, snipping his hair, and muttering magic words. It was atmospheric, but for the actors involved, shooting the scene over and over was a little exhausting.

Entertainment Weekly continues to dribble and drabble out bits from its big upcoming cover story on Friday, about how the show kept Jon Snow’s resurrection under wraps as well as it did. Today’s feature focuses on the experience of filming the actual resurrection scene. Van Houten says it was a long, arduous process.

It took forever to resurrect him, forever! It was such an important scene, we shot it from so many angles. I think I washed his body 50 times. There would be a lot of people who would be very jealous, including my mother and sister. I was joking about that with him – ‘if only my mother could see this’ – and he loved that.

Kit Harington, on the other hand, loved every minute of it. And after five seasons of marching north of the Wall, marching back down again, crossing the Wall, fighting the night’s watch and the the wildlings and then defending Castle Black, one can see why. His days on set are usually spent out of doors, with heavy swords and lots of action. For once, here he was, warm and snug at the Titanic Studio lot, and all he had to do was not fall asleep. Or at least not snore.

It was such an easy two two episodes, I loved it. I’m in a warm room, which is unusual for me.

As for all the washing and grooming…here’s how he described it: “very weird, like a teenage boy’s wet dream – you’re laying there naked and Carice van Houten is washing you.” Welp. I suppose we should be thankful for the strategically placed cloth on his midsection then.

As for van Houten, she’s hoping now that she has done what fans have been begging her do: bring Jon Snow back from the dead. Hopefully, that will make up for what she did to Shireen last season, at least a little.

Well, as a wise magician once said, humans don’t always know when they’re happy. But right now things do seem to be looking up.