Former Game of Thrones stars look back on their death scenes
With the final season of Game of Thrones only days away, most fans are looking to the future, trying to guess what will become of their favorite characters during the remaining episodes and speculating about who will sit on the Iron Throne when the dust has cleared.
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At the same time, many of the show’s former cast members are looking back at their experiences on set, and how they left. Take Harry Lloyd, who talked to Entertainment Weekly about his final season as Viserys Targaryen, Daenerys’ loathsome older brother. Being crowned by Khal Drogo is a pretty memorable way to go out.
According to Lloyd, his crowning was the final scene he shot for Game of Thrones, and it came at the end of a very long day. The costuming and makeup were major projects, and it was something of a relief when it was over. “It’s your final moment on the show,” he recalled. “You stop worrying about overacting. You leave it all on the floor. I did some research and talked to some doctor friend about what would kill you. Would it be the gold penetrating the skull? Cutting off the brain? What would actually be the thing that kills you? And I was thinking about how to play that. In the end when it happens, I just screamed.”
Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon) also spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her character’s end. According to Ingram, she knew that Shireen would be departing from the show during the fifth season, but she wasn’t given much insight into how or why. Imagine her surprise upon receiving that script, where it’s revealed that she’s burned at the stake by her own parents.
Shireen’s death took longer than Viserys’ to film, with Ingram needing to be present for two of the three days the scene was shot. She spoke about mastering Shireen’s scream, which she wanted to ensure captured the experience of being burned alive. She was nervous about the extras present for that moment:
"The thing I was most nervous about was the screaming because it’s not something that I can just practice in my room. I was gonna get the police called on me. It’s a different kind of scream, it’s not just like screaming in a playground. It’s a certain kind of scream that I wanted to nail. I brought this up to production: “I don’t really know what to do. Is there anyway I could get a soundproof room or something like that just so that I can prepare for it?” So what they did is they took me out to an empty car park in the middle of Belfast and had a vocal coach scream with me. It was very funny to the people passing by. That was the only preparation that I did.”"
I think it’s safe to say that Ingram got the scream painfully, horribly right.
After her death scene, it didn’t hit Ingram that she wouldn’t be coming back to Game of Thrones until several months later. “It was weird. It didn’t really hit me I was gone from the show until the next summer when they started filming again and I wasn’t going to Belfast.” Sadly, most fans will probably be able to relate to this in just a few weeks. What do you mean, Game of Thrones is never airing again?
Michael McElhatton, who played Roose Bolton until he was killed by his despicable son Ramsay in season 6, had a more matter-of-fact reaction to being killed off. According to him, filming his final scene wasn’t as “emotional or dramatic” as he’d anticipated. In an interview with IGN, he explained that they spent a long day filming his death, but ultimately, it was a short moment to capture.
"It was a short, brutal killing; not particularly spectacular, but it mirrored my killing of Robb Stark, I think, and that’s why they wanted to do that. It was pleasant but uneventful."
We’ll agree that Roose Bolton certainly deserved his end, but it seemed anything but “uneventful” watching at home.
When it comes to the upcoming finale, McElhatton’s thoughts mirror those of many fans: he just wants to be surprised. “Is everybody going to be killed? I don’t think everybody can be killed, can they?”
Sadly, we have a feeling they’re going to try. The eighth season of Game of Thrones premieres on April 14. Who will be reflecting on their characters’ deaths by the time it’s over?
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