Now that filming on Game of Thrones is over, star Gwendoline Christie is looking back on what playing Brienne of Tarth has meant to her. Speaking with UK magazine Evening Standard, Christie says she cried for two whole hours when she removed Brienne’s armor for the last time. “It truly was the most incredible thing that happened to me.”
"I know how generic it sounds but it just was, in every sense of the word, incredible that that part should come along, made for me in a way that none of my friends would’ve identified for a second. They saw all of the fighting, the physicality, the fact that it was a character who was constantly being described as ugly. None of the people who knew me could understand why I would want to play that part. I had to cut my hair, change my body, strip off my make-up. This is not the person I have presented to the world at all."
It was a long time getting there. At 6’3”, Christie says she was “bullied terribly” for her height when she was younger. She turned to fashion, and to “the transportative nature of the arts,” to escape, and learned to embrace her unconventionality.
"You either think I’m unconventional and there’s no place for me and therefore I should disappear, or you think good, I’m happy to be on the outside. Because if this is the small-minded, mean, uncompassionate viewpoint of the inside, then I don’t want to be there. I’m happy out here with all the other leftovers, who show love and support for each other. All of the inconsistencies, complexities and ugly parts — whatever that might mean — can exist and beauty can be made out of it. That’s what I want beauty to be."
Christie knew she wanted to be onscreen from an early age. (“I wanted to climb in.”) Once she embraced that, things fell into place. She landed the role of Brienne on Thrones, and then Captain Phasma in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, meaning she’s part of two of the biggest franchises of the past 10 years. When she met Harrison Ford (Han Solo) and Carrie Fisher (Leia) at a convention, it was all she could do to contain herself. “I try to be gracious in these moments. But I’m an idiot, so you do just internally scream and dissolve on the floor and can’t really cope and go bright red.”
"[Fisher’s] mind was so fast and so hysterically funny that she would set up a joke, you would laugh, then she would push it further… you would laugh even more and then she’d push it further again and you’d laugh so much that you thought your eyes were going to fall out."
Carrie Fisher isn’t the only costar to bowl Christie over. She also recalls good times with Diana Rigg (Olenna Tyrell), who approached Christie at an airport lounge and related how excited she was to be working with her. “Just being around her was an absolute masterclass,” Christie said. “She’s a sensational performer but she’s a sensational person, too. We had dinner, we walked around together, we went shopping, bought hats, went in antique shops and then we had an amazing, juicy, salacious, hilarious dinner together.”
I never knew how badly I needed an “Olenna and Brienne go shopping” montage. Spinoff?
Between her rising presence in the world of fashion and her role in the upcoming Star Wars Resistance TV series, Christie will be as busy as she wants to be in the coming years. We’ll all be watching her final bow as Brienne in 2019.
To stay up to date on everything Game of Thrones, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Watch Game of Thrones or Succession for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels