As we bid farewell to the innocent Tommen Baratheon, the boy-king who never really stood a chance on Game of Thrones, actor Dean-Charles Chapman sits down with Vulture to talk about why he always knew Tommen was in for it, landing face-first on a crash mat, and the fate of Ser Pounce.
On Game of Thrones, news of a character’s death is delivered to the actor with a phone call from the executive producers. Chapman seems to have taken his pretty well.
"I first found out when we got flown out to Belfast for a table read with the cast, and the night before, I got a call from [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss]. As soon as I saw it was them, I knew it was over. I answered the phone, “Hey, how are you doing? You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” “Um, yeah.” But they said it really, really nicely, and I thanked them, because they had given me two roles, Tommen and Martyn Lannister. And then I told my mom, and she was like, “Aww, man!”"
Like many other Game of Thrones fans, Chapman had long suspected that Tommen wasn’t going to survive the series. But the actor was glad that the young king died in a fashion that best suited the softness of the character:
"When I first signed on to play Tommen, I started speculating about when he was going to die. I sort of knew he wouldn’t be the last one on the throne, but Tommen doesn’t really deserve to have his throat slit or his stomach jabbed. In a way, Tommen died the way he was — it was a peaceful death."
The sequences in “The Winds of Winter” where Tommen dresses and commits suicide required a lot of patience. As for the drop out the window, Chapman says it wasn’t difficult, although he did take dozens of thumps to the face:
"The stunt wasn’t too hard. I walk to the top of the window, fall off on a crash mat, and I basically face-planted. [Laughs.] It’s really draining. The whole sequence, where he’s getting dressed, sitting on his seat, and the Mountain comes in, that was all one day. And the whole death scene, that was a long, long time. I’d say, Jesus, falling onto the mat? It’s got to be 30 times, or more, for all the different angles. I took a lot of face-plants. It’s all good!"
Although the suicide scene wasn’t complicated, it was a tough for the actor emotionally.
"But filming that day, it was sad. Previous to shooting it, I’d known about it for four months, and to be honest, I was dreading it. I didn’t really want to face Tommen’s death, to get into that state of what Tommen was processing. At that point, I think I had another two months of shooting, so it wasn’t my last day. I probably would have been crying my eyes out if it was."
Chapman also says that Tommen had a good idea of what desperate plot his mother Cersei might be up to, saying “. . . when he sees the Sept explode, he knows.” But Tommen’s awakening is far too little and far too late. Chapman describes the character as a “powerless/gullible king,” a boy wracked by feelings of guilt, but in the end Chapman places the majority of the blame for Tommen’s weakness on the shoulders of his mother:
"And I blame Cersei for that, because she always shielded him, but she was really shielding him from politics, and the world, and how cruel people really are. He didn’t get the life lessons he should have had . . . he’s anti-violence, anti-hatred, and unfortunately, that got everyone killed . . . Tommen was always doomed, especially with the prophecy (of Maggy the Frog) on his back. There was no way he could have had a happy life, especially with a mom like Cersei. There’s no getting over that."
And what of the poor Ser Pounce?
"He’s probably still in Tommen’s chambers, hidden under the bed, shaking with fear or something. I hope he has no worries. I hope he runs around the castle, sees another cat, has some kittens. I hope he does well in life."
We hope for the best for Ser Pounce, but this is Game of Thrones, so odds are it won’t end well for him, either. Please don’t let him end up in a pie.