Ellie Kendrick on Meera Reed’s mission, and the “huge journey” to come

After they took Season 5 off completely, we’ve talked a lot about Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran) and Kristian Nairn’s (Hodor) return to Game of Thrones for Season 6. But following the deaths of Hodor and Summer, only one of the companions Bran originally came north with remains: Meera Reed.

Ellie Kendrick, who plays Meera, hasn’t talked too much about her return to the show, but now that she’s the one Bran is most dependent on, she sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss how he’s become her character’s “mission.”

"Her whole existence for a long time was looking out for her brother, and being her brother’s protector. It was a job she was tasked with. Once he dies, she’s left kind of purposeless, which is why she clings on so much to the Bran mission. It’s a dedicated purpose she can jump onto. For her, she’s completely destroyed by her brother’s death. However, she’s someone who is incredibly strong and pragmatic. She knows she can’t achieve anything by continuing to mourn. Her best way to work through those things is by action and dedicated purpose. That’s why I think she gives 1010 percent to protecting Bran and making sure this time it works out with him, where it didn’t with Jojen."

Kendrick also says that Meera is so focused on protecting Bran that it doesn’t occur to her in the moment that by asking Hodor to “hold the door” in “The Door,” she’s asking him to stay behind and die for them. She calls it a “tunnel vision” moment. “There’s just no way she can stop and consider logically what’s happening. If you have an army of the undead chasing after you, you’re only going to be thinking one thing: “Run!” It was interesting, having the challenge of creating that adrenaline and fear and sadness of Hodor, but not being able to process it at all.”

Speaking of that scene, she said that reading the script for the first time was so intense that she forgot she was actually reading the scene to observe what her character was doing. Kendrick is one of the few actors left on the show who was a mega-fan of the books before being cast, and here, she was like any other fan getting to learn what happened next.

"I was reading it with such excitement, because this is a real story unfolding, with so many mysteries and quantum leaps and Inception-style traveling between the past and the present. I found it very exciting. So the first time I read it, I was just reading it for enjoyment, really, because it was so well-written and exciting. Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was really keen to get started working on it, because it’s such an epic sequence."

She says she was also shown CGI mockups prior to blocking the scene out to help her imagine what was happening on the green screen, which was incredibly helpful. “A lot of the filming we were doing was running away from men in green micro suits playing wights, to be replaced by graphics later. (The final version) was very cool to see.”

As for the arrival of Benjen, Kendrick says that, for Meera, it’s more about having someone who can help her get Bran to safety, even if he is “completely terrifying and weird.” As a book fan, she finds the amalgamation of the Coldhands character with Benjen to be a very satisfying way for the TV show to tackle it.

"It was a nice marriage between the book and TV revelations rolled into one. I was very excited having him on set. I loved working with [Joseph Mawle], and I loved having another member of our rapidly dwindling gang. (Laughs.) We needed him right then!"

As for what’s coming next, Kendrick isn’t giving anything away. She just says that she, Bran, and Benjen still have a long journey ahead of them, and “many more challenges to face.”