Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell) praises Cersei Lannister
By Corey Smith
Natalie Dormer’s time as Margaery Tyrell ended in a blast of wildfire in the Game of Thrones season 6 finale. Being incinerated by Cersei Lannister might leave some bitter, but Dormer has remained a fan of the show and keeps in contact with the cast (and apparently knows how it ends, not that she’s spilling). In fact, in an interview with The Telegraph, Dormer even found things to admire about Margaery’s killer:
"I think she’s an anti-heroine. Cersei has had all her children murdered and taken away from her – and I’m not condoning her behaviour, but there is a fully fleshed-out human being in David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss]’s writing, and in Lena Headey’s performance."
That doesn’t mean Dormer wasn’t a little ticked when she watched the Tyrells get slaughtered in season 7, but it’s nice to know she can keep things in perspective.
Anyway, Dormer thinks that Cersei shows more complexity than other mass murderers in popular fiction. “You see incrementally how she became the monster that she is,” she said. “To me, that’s good writing, it’s not Marvel good and bad.”
To be fair, in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos was trying to solve galactic famine…or something.
Elsewhere, Dormer has been on the defensive when responding to criticism about the sex scenes in her new movie In Darkness, which she co-wrote with partner and director Anthony Byrne. In it, she plays a blind musician who lives below a woman who dies under mysterious circumstances. Intrigue and nudity follow.
"There has to be sexuality in the power play of a thriller. We have all got bodies, after all. In this film the sex scene, which for me was a love-making scene, is a metaphor for the way my character connects with the part played by Ed Skrein. Nakedness is a good equaliser and the shower scene also shows the tattoos on my character’s body and makes it clear she is not quite who you think."
Skrein actually played Daenerys Targaryen boy toy Daario Naharis for one season of Game of Thrones before being replaced by Michiel Huisman, so In Darkness is a bit of a Thrones reunion, although Dormer and Skrein never shared a scene together.
Dormer also talked about the challenge of turning Skrein’s character, who is essentially a love interest for Dormer, into a “into a developed, 3D character.” Considering how often female love interests in movies are underdeveloped compared to the male leads, it was an eye-opener. “You don’t want them to become just a plot device. So I thought, ‘Oh, all these male white heterosexual writers have not necessarily been conspiring against women, it is just they are so obsessed with the main character, that they can’t help it’.”
In Darkness was released to theaters in the U.S. in May.
Next: Sophie Turner reveals the internal codename for Game of Thrones season 8
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