Jessica Henwick plays Nymeria Sand on Game of Thrones. One of the Sand Snakes, Nymeria isn’t the most popular character, but Henwick has been playing her for two years and fans expected her to come back for season 7. But as Henwick tells Entertainment Weekly, that very nearly didn’t happen.
"I wasn’t able to do it. My schedule clashed. I was filming Iron Fist for six-to-seven months and they wouldn’t give me the time off. [GoT] was so massive for me in terms of my career and building my profile and as an experience in itself, I wanted to return. [A GoT producer explained], ‘It’s really important that you come back otherwise your character will just disappear.’"
As Henwick alludes to, she had a big role in Netflix’s Iron Fist, which debuted a few months back. (Coincidentally enough, the title role in Iron Fist was played by Finn Jones, aka Loras Tyrell.) As badly as she wanted to come back to Game of Thrones, she considered pulling a Gendry and just letting Nymeria drop off the face of the planet. “And then fans will never know what happened to her, just like with Joe Dempsie. It would be like: ‘What happened to her?’ ‘No one knows…‘
Happily, Henwick spoke to Marvel and got a release, so Nymeria will show up in Game of Thrones season 7. Henwick had to fly back and forth between Belfast and New York to shoot the two shows at once for a while, but she got it done.
As for what Nymeria will get up to in season 7, Henwick is a little more coy. “When we left Nymeria she was newly aligned with Olenna Tyrell and was going to start a war. We pick up right where we left off and get into the nitty gritty very quickly. There is no time wasted this season.”
See exactly what trouble Nymeria gets in to when season 7 debuts on July 16.