Natalie Dormer talks sex on Game of Thrones, feminism, and typecasting

Natalie Dormer is quietly becoming one of Game of Thrones’ biggest success stories. True, she hasn’t gotten a starring role in a big Hollywood movie like costars Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, but since she snagged the part of Margaery Tyrell, she’s appeared in the tremendously popular Hunger Games series, and will soon be headlining The Scadalous Lady W, a BBC drama about a woman who shocked Gregorian England with her open-minded attitude toward sex.

Despite a concern about being pigeonholed as an actress who specializes in period dramas (in addition to fake period drama Game of Thrones, Dormer also appeared as Anne Boelyn in actual period drama The Tudors), Dormer was won over by the script for Lady W. “You read the real-life details and find yourself saying, ‘She did what? He did what to her?’ I was just intrigued,” she said in an interview with The Telegraph.

The details do sound awfully intriguing. The Scandalous Lady W tells the story of Lady Seymour Worsley, wife to Ser Richard Worsley. When Lady Worsley ran off with a neighbor, George Bisset, Ser Richard responded not by filing for divorce, but by suing Bisset for what amounted to damage to his property, which in this case meant his wife.

Ser Richard demanded the equivalent of £20 million in modern money, and because of the laws of the time, Lady Worsley wasn’t even allowed to take the stand in her own defense. “The reason Seymour doesn’t stand up in court to defend herself is that you would no more ask a wife how she felt about being with a man than you would ask a cow how it felt about being stolen,” Dormer said.

But wait: it gets better. In their defense, Seymour and Bisset claimed that Seymour couldn’t be worth the equivalent of £20 million, because she had been with 26 men other than Bisset during their marriage. What’s more, she did this with Bisset’s consent, as he liked to watch. Her ex-lovers took the stand to corroborate the story, the press ate it up, and 18th century England was well and properly scandalized.

This kind of story really puts some of the things that happen on Game of Thrones into context, considering that the series is based on British history. The misogyny on Game of Thrones is dramatic, but crank up the injustices going on here and a scenario where a religious official forces a woman to walk naked through the streets in order to shame her may not seem so far-fetched (incidentally, that bit is also based on a real-life event).

Natalie Dormer seemed to be in that headspace when she commented on the sex and violence on Game of Thrones.

"I think sex and romance is a huge part of human motivation. So long as it’s informing the story then I don’t see what the problem is. Obviously no one likes gratuitous sex or gratuitous misogyny, the same way people shouldn’t like gratuitous violence.But I think Thrones is quite good in that way. The violence is quite naturalistic. It’s not hyper-stylised. It’s not glamorised. And the sex is quite real and dirty as well. It’s about those raw, visceral qualities of human life that make good drama."

It’s a question the show has dealt with a lot lately, how to depict violence and sex without seeming gratuitous or offensive, especially when it comes to women. If Dormer has anything to say about it, the solution is to feature flawed, well-rounded female characters who ground the outrageous situations in which they find themselves.

Head over to The Guardian for the full interview. Dormer is very insightful and smart, so it’s a really good read.

Next: George R.R. Martin on what sets Game of Thrones apart from Lord of the Rings