20 takeaways from Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon, behind the scenes of Game of Thrones

Helen Sloan – HBO (13) Jaime Brienne

5. Jaime and Brienne’s relationship is baaaasically the same off-screen

Among the more serious points of intrigue in Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon, there are also plenty of hilarious insights into the lives and experiences of the cast and crew. For example, the book details the first meeting between Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister). It plays out pretty close to how their characters got on back in season 3.

Christie recounted the whole thing for Hibberd:

"On one of my first days of filming, I was told Nikolaj was in the makeup truck and that I should go and say hello. I didn’t want to because I felt so shy. They said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be nice.” So I walked in and I said, “Hello, my name is Gwen,…,” and then, “I’m playing Brienne.” He just looked me up and down like I was an alien from another planet, possibly a pile of manure, and then said: “Oh, so that’s you, is it?” I was really uncomfortable. I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Okay…,” and then he went back to looking at himself in the mirror. I felt awful.”"

Coster-Waldau saw it another way. “She has this whole story about me being very rude to her when we first met,” he said. “I don’t remember that at all.”

But Christie stands firm: “He has denied this! He has denied it publicly. He’s denied it to my face in private. But when he denies it privately, he laughs. Nikolaj can have an incredibly selective memory.”

There are plenty more of these sorts of back-and-forths, basically driving home that Coster-Waldau and Christie have the same sort of easy rapport off screen that Jaime and Brienne do onscreen. For example, here’s them reading the season 8 scripts and finding out that their characters have sex:

"Christie: “I received a text from Nikolaj just laughing. I sent back a being-sick emoji. How modern.” Coster-Waldau: “It was really weird [to film],” said Coster-Waldau. “It was awkward. I was trying to laugh, and Gwendoline was like, “Don’t you f***ing laugh!'”"

There’s chemistry, and then there’s chemistry.