Jacob Anderson discusses the invasion of Casterly Rock

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Game of Thrones star Jacob Anderson discussed Grey Worm’s growth from a tertiary character to a main player. He’s a lover, he’s a fighter, and right now, he’s in rather a lot of danger. Should we be afraid for him?

“Well, I think everybody should be afraid for every character at this point in the show,” Anderson said. Okay, but what about for Grey Worm specifically? Last we saw him, Euron Greyjoy had penned Grey Worm and his Unsullied army in at Casterly Rock. Is Grey Worm afraid he might not make it out of this alive?

"If he died in that battle, during the actual fight, I think it would have been kind of in a weird way his honor. But where he’s left at the moment, it’s more about: “Right. How do I get back now?” He’s a bit stuck. I’m not sure it’s so much that he’s afraid. He’s a pretty brave dude. I don’t think he’s afraid of being stranded. He’s just afraid of not seeing this person that he loves again."

That person, of course, is Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), with whom Grey Worm finally shared a love scene in “Stormborn,” the second episode of the season. “It was the most difficult scene I’ve ever had to do in my life, for so many different reasons,” Anderson said of that moment. “There’s the part where it’s uncomfortable because Nathalie and I are friends. You don’t want to have to do that kind of thing. It’s a really vulnerable position to be in with a friend. Also, you have 20 people watching you naked.”

In the end, he and Emmanuel were able to help each other through the scene. It was a very vulnerable moment for him, but Anderson admits that may have helped it ring true, since it was also a very vulnerable moment for Grey Worm — the most vulnerable of his life. “[I]t’s the most that Grey Worm has ever really talked about anything that isn’t having to do with duty or strategy,” Anderson said. “It was very difficult to work that out. How does Grey Worm talk about his feelings? It’s a beautifully written scene. Bryan Cogman did an amazing job. I take no credit for that at all.”

"But even in terms of … you don’t want to be too vulnerable, but if it’s not the most vulnerable that character has ever been, it doesn’t really do anything. It’s the same with everything, playing this part, finding the exact right balance between being completely stoic and nothing, and being somebody who is trying to work out how to be a human."

How much vulnerability to show has been a challenge for Anderson since the beginning. As an Unsullied, he’s supposed to have been stripped of all feeling, and when Anderson first started on the show, showrunner Dan Weiss told him to “‘think about yourself as a robot. You think about someone who has been traumatized so much they can no longer bare to feel anything about what they do. You just have to play someone who is almost not human anymore.'”

That’s been interesting to play, but the point of Grey Worm’s story over the past several seasons is that he’s been slowly getting back in touch with his emotions. “Becoming a human is quite a difficult thing to work out in your head.” Anderson said. “Sometimes, I would go too far, and I would have to pull it back a little bit, and not be too musical in speech. It’s hard to describe. It’s not something too many people would ever have to understand. At least I hope not.”

One of the areas in which he’d occasionally go too far was in the fight scenes, where he had to master the instinct to “screw up [my face] and…pretend that I’m an Avenger or whatever.”

"[T]hey’re like, “No, you have to be much more badass than that. You have to show no emotion. Killing is what you were bred to do.” It’s a horrible way to get there and it’s a horrible thing to be bred to do, but that’s the reality for that character. That’s often the hardest thing — not so much in this fight, but in the past, just keeping a straight face more or less throughout a fight. That’s been the hardest thing for me to do, generally."

“This fight” refers to the assault on Casterly Rock, where Anderson could away with a little facial screwing because he was wearing a helmet for much of the scene. “You kind of learn it like a dance, really,” he said of the fight choreography. “It’s all about counts. I think there were 30 or 32 moves in that fight last night. You have to know where you have to be at move No. 5, and at move No. 6 you have to be there. You feel it and feel it and feel it, and keep practicing. This year was quite good, though, fighting in that corridor. It was a good little path.”

Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO

The whole Casterly Rock sequence took around seven or eight days to film, and while Anderson is always excited to perform action scenes, he admitted that shooting this one got a little uncomfortable, particularly when he filming on the boat. There was a lot of damp and cold to deal with. “I got myself through it by dancing. I just danced on the boat and got freaked out by all of the rocking.”

"My trousers ripped twice! In fact, my trousers ripped three times during this fight. I wanted to look cool. It’s not fair! There’s a bit where I have to jump out of the boat and into the water, and my trousers ripped wide open…I was just getting freezing water shooting up into my junk. That’s what that was. (Laughs.) If you think I look cool jumping out of the boat? Well, that’s what was happening in real life."

Puts a whole new spin on this shot:

Finally, circling back to the Grey Worm-Missandei love scene, Anderson discussed why it wasn’t important to show fans exactly what Grey Worm was, or wasn’t, working with:

"I kind of feel like it’s not the point. It’s exactly the kind of thing that would get set off on the internet, but in terms of the story, it’s not the point. The point is, whatever is going on, that moment of [Missandei] accepting him and him realizing that she accepts him is the more important thing. We know that he’s a eunuch. To what degree? It’s up for debate. It’s a scene about acceptance and physical acceptance. There’s a lot of masculinity on our show, and I think Grey Worm is an interesting one [in that space]. He can fight, he can defend himself, and all of the things that people traditionally associate with masculinity. I think it calls up a lot of interesting questions. The point for me isn’t about what he’s got or hasn’t got. Whatever he’s got, she accepts it. That means everything to him, I think. I think it’s the one thing that’s held him back in the past."

Let’s hope Grey Worm lives long enough to explore his newfound feelings.

Next: Videos: Go behind the scenes of “The Queen’s Justice” with the Game of Thrones cast and crew

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