“Meryn Morghulis”: Ian Beattie on Meryn Trant’s brutal final moments

The last time we saw Meryn Trant, he was bleeding from a gaping neck wound on the floor of a Braavosi brothel, having already had his eyes gouged out and his body perforated like a TV dinner before it goes in the microwave by Arya Stark.

It was a brutal end for the character, but actor Ian Beattie isn’t complaining. He recently sat down with Speakeasy to discuss his time on the show and the unseemly things we learned about his character toward the end of his life. “When David and Dan phoned me to say I was going, they did say that we’d see a real nasty side to Ser Meryn,” Beattie said. “I thought that was fine, you know, I’m going to get to kill some people. Then, of course, I got the scripts and the scenes, and I was horrified.

As a father of three, Beattie had an understandably difficult time with the scene in “Mother’s Mercy” where Trant beat three girls with a switch in a brothel. Apparently, the scene was photographed very carefully so that none of the children were ever touched, and Beattle assured Speakeasy that they were well taken care of, with their parents present just offside. Still, the actor had to periodically excuse himself so he could “go to the bathroom and I would burst into tears.” He also shed a little light on how director David Nutter helped him through the scene.

"…he helped me very much to guide me through the maze that was what was going to be the revelation of the personal side of Ser Meryn with a result of playing it almost without emotion, save for one or two kind of key moments within the scenes, I think I hopefully brought the true nature of the evil of the man out."

I’d say he did a solid job.

Ugh…this guy.

More generally, Beattie had nothing but nice things to say about David Benioff, Dan Weiss, and their willingness to give him the opportunity to appear on what he called “a real game-changer” of a show. As for whether Meryn Trant got what he deserved, Beattie was pretty explicit.

"In my own opinion, Ser Meryn didn’t get half of what he deserved. I would have taken a week to kill him."

Valar Morghulis, and thank gods for that.

Next: Alfie Allen (Theon) filming near Ballingtoy Harbor (Iron Islands) this week