‘Game of Thrones’ director accidentally lied to Obama about Jon Snow’s fate
In “Inside the Episode,” writers and directors reflect on the making of their Emmy-winning episodes.
David Nutter carried out a lot of death sentences in the nine episodes of “Game of Thrones” that he directed.
He helmed Season 3’s “The Rains of Castamere,” which is more commonly known as the Red Wedding because it featured the bloody end of beloved characters Robb Stark (Richard Madden) and his mother, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley). He saw Kerry Ingram’s Shireen Baratheon, a child, burned at the stake in Season 5’s “The Dance of Dragons” and in Season 8, he had Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) beheaded as she utters her final word: “dracarys” (“dragonfire” in High Valyrian or “burn it down” in modern English).
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But he’s also noteworthy for a character he didn’t really kill after all: Kit Harington’s heart-of-gold Jon Snow. Although Jon seemed to be brought down in a Julius Caesar-like mutiny in Nutter’s Emmy-winning “Mother’s Mercy,” the HBO drama’s Season 5 finale, the next season’s premiere taught us that he was only mostly dead.
But Jon’s stabbing is just one of many, many things that happened in that jam-packed 2015 episode. Other highlights include Cersei’s (Lena Headey) literal walk of shame; Arya (Maisie Williams) going blind because she misuses a power; and Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Theon (Alfie Allen), two abused victims of the psychotic Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon), joining forces.
And because this is “Game of Thrones,” there were also lots of character deaths.
Before departing for his daughter’s wedding earlier this summer, which he promised would be a lot more chill than anything he’d directed, Nutter discussed making what became one of prestige TV’s most divisive episodes.
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What’s the first thing you do when you get an episode with this much happening?
Scream. (Laughs)
You know, it was the finale of the season and it was my big chance to show what I got.
There was the shame walk that we had to do when Lena [Headey as Cersei] was six months pregnant. So I had to find an actress who could actually do this walk like her and carry the same gravitas and weight. That was probably the toughest job I’ve ever had because I had to be a psychiatrist. I talked to all of these actresses who auditioned for the role, and I’d say to them, “You know that you could possibly be trending on the internet all over the world if someone snaps a picture of you on the first day of shooting?”
A lot of women auditioned on tape and did the walk of shame naked. But there was one woman who auditioned on tape and did it in her undergarments. But she had a great head and shoulders, and Lena had a very similar [look]. And she was this great actress named Rebecca Van Cleave. She was from Virginia and lived in London and studied acting. She really wanted to be a good actress, and she was just phenomenal. I’ll never forget. There’s a side shot where you can’t even tell if it’s Lena or Rebecca.
That scene also features (a fully clothed) Hannah Waddingham as a religious zealot, yelling “shame” as she guides Cersei through town. She was then an unknown actor, but she’d soon become a breakout star of Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso.” Do you remember casting her?
[Creators] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] cast her. We wanted someone who was overpowering, and her whole presence was overpowering. Her voice was strong.
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There’s also the big secret of Jon Snow’s seeming murder. Did you know when you shot this episode that he would be resurrected in the next season?
I never wanted to read past where I was in the story. Right after the season ended, there was a big political event with Barack Obama, and we were at Chuck Lorre’s house. Obama was a huge fan of “Game of Thrones.” I took a picture with Barack. He grabbed me and shook my hand, and he put his [other] hand on my shoulder and whispered, “You didn’t kill Jon Snow, did you?” I said, “Sir, he’s dead. He’s deader than dead.”
Did not knowing yourself make it easier for you as a director?
Yeah, much easier.
You want to give it the gravitas it needs.
I also wanted to do it kind of quick and not make it a long, drawn-out thing. So I used one camera as he steps through the crowd … and then the last shot was of Jon Snow [on the ground] with a [camera] up in a crane. I’d done enough gore with the Red Wedding that this needed to be almost peaceful.
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The audience had questions about another death in this episode: Stephen Dillane’s Stannis Baratheon. The audience sees him wounded after battle, and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) raises her sword over her head as if to strike him down for good. But we don’t actually see the body. How did that shot come about?
That was David and Dan twisting the screws tighter and tighter.
There’s also a death that encapsulates the show’s ethos of having something kind of good immediately followed by something really bad: Myrcella Baratheon (Nell Tiger Free) dies by poisoning after she tells her uncle, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), that she knows he’s her biological father and that she’s cool with it.
This is a love scene between a daughter and a father. You know, “You sacrificed yourself for [this family]. But everything you did is for a purpose.” And then the daughter was willing to help her father any way that she could.
Toward the end of the episode, we see Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) slowly, and then suddenly, surrounded by Dothraki warriors — members of her late husband’s people. But neither she nor the audience is clear if they’re happy to see her. How did you accomplish this?
We wanted it to be something where it evolved. She’s on top of the hill and she sees a storm coming in a way. It’s almost like they enveloped her. It’s a hurricane of Dothraki that she’s in the middle of.
It was important to play to the stature of her. Like they’re almost in awe of her.
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