Owen Teale on Alliser Thorne’s death scene, Natalie Dormer on Margaery’s ideal cellmate

We’ve got a couple of interviews for you today—let’s start with the old, go into the new, and end with the curious.

First, the old: Owen Teale, who’s officially no longer on Game of Thrones after his character, Alliser Thorne, was hanged by Jon Snow in “Oathbreaker,” went over his death scene with Vulture. Being hanged is pretty involved, from an acting perspective.

"Each of us was wearing a harness around our bodies under our clothes, and a wire that goes into the actual rope that is hanging, to take the tension. When I stood on the barrel, I remember thinking, “Ah, this isn’t too bad.”…Then the stunt guy says, “Now we’re going to tie your hands behind your back,” and when he does, immediately, it is just the most horrible sensation. It’s absolutely scary and powerless, even though he’s standing there and talking to you and making sure you’re all right…It was one of the most shocking things I’ve ever done, even though I wasn’t feeling the pressure on my neck. I had to learn to act that…Everybody watching it was appalled, in the right way, because after all, it is a punishment."

The production apparently took the idea of this being a punishment to heart. According to Teale, the hanging was purposefully staged so as to draw out the suffering of the condemned. Had the drop been steeper, Alliser, Olly, and company would have died instantly, but because they didn’t fall very far, it took some time. “That’s really gruesome,” Teale said when he found out about that tidbit.

"As I remember, the speech that I give to Jon Snow, explaining the way I’ve lived my life — “I fought, I lost, and now I will rest” — he seems at peace about that. But when the moment comes, and you’re dangling, you can’t help but fight to live. It’s important to see them suffer before they actually die, because as Jon Snow sees it it’s insurrection. It’s treason, what they’ve committed. It’s important to see them suffer, as a message to anybody else who might be thinking of doing the same."

We’ll spare you a screenshot of the Thorne’s bloated, blue face, something that will probably be showing up in my nightmares for a while, but I suspect that the brutality of the mass execution was one of the things that inspired Jon Snow to pull up stakes at Castle Black and leave the Night’s Watch, particularly after he saw Olly hanging there.

Read the full interview at Vulture—Teale also gets into why Alliser Thorne sat out Seasons 2 and 3 (he had committed to do a comedy series called Stella, but was “really moved when they asked me to come back for season four”), and what Thorne would have done had Jon Snow not come back to life.

Next, Natalie Dormer sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss Margaery’s current predicament. The rightful queen of Westeros is still locked up beneath the Sept of Baelor, trying to avoid having to take a walk of shame like the last queen of Westeros, Cersei Lannister. Who would she like to share a cell with?

"It would be best if I was in prison with my brother. I mean we’re in prison together, so we might as well be in the same cell together to keep each other company, but they’re not that charitable, unfortunately."

There’s a brief glimpse of Margaery cradling Loras’ head in the trailer for the next episode, so it looks like the two will at least get to meet soon, if not share a cell. As for who she’d least like to share a cell with:

"The worst person to be in a cell with would be the ghost of my husband. The second one, not the first one. The first one’s ghost would probably be quite good company."

Finally, on the curious side of things, Rose Leslie (Ygritte) claimed that she had no idea about Jon Snow’s resurrection during a recent appearance on Sky News’ Sunrise show. “I had no idea,” she said. “I was kind of like, just as surprised as the rest of the world when the man woke back up again.” This is despite the fact that Kit Harington, who’s dating Leslie, told Entertainment Weekly that he revealed the twist to her “early on.” Maybe she wasn’t listening?

h/t Mashable