Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) Talks That Horrifying Scene from last night
If there’s one person in all the realm who is hurting more than we are after watching Shireen’s demise, it’s Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth). Davos wasn’t there to witness Shireen’s death, but it can’t have been easy for the actor, whose character had loved Shireen Baratheon (Kerry Ingram) like his own daughter, to hear her scream in anguish and agony as she burned to death.
Cunningham sat down with The New York Times’ Arts Beat, and said pretty much what you probably expected him to say:
It did hurt. I love working with Kerry. So it’s an awful loss, both professionally and personally.
Before the season even started, both Cunningham and Ingram were interviewed about their roles, and both dropped hints we probably should have been more nervous about. Liam said that there would be a moment that would rival The Red Wedding for shock value. Presumably, this is what he was talking about. Kerry, meanwhile, was interviewed by Flicks and the City, which asked her directly about the darkness of the season. Watch her expertly maneuver around the topic near the 3:30 mark.
Back on Arts Beat, Cunnigham discussed when he first found out about Shireen’s fate.
Oh, God. It was probably this time last year, when they sent me the scripts, and I read them through and saw that this delightful young lady was going to be burned. I was astonished — well, listen, nothing astonishes me on this show, to be honest with you. But it hit very close to home.
When asked why Davos didn’t use his knowledge of smuggling to sneak the princess out of the camp, he had this to say:
His loyalty and decency gets him in trouble again. He wanted to take the queen and the princess away because a battle was about to ensue. So he is quite confused about it. Stannis is getting him out of the way because he knows he’s about to do the wrong thing. He doesn’t want to be looking in Davos’s eyes when he tries to do it, because he won’t be able to go through with it. I do not find out what actually happens to Shireen until the final episode.
S0, Davos will in fact find out about Stannis burning Shireen in the Season 5 finale. I wonder how that will go down, because Davos has always been loyal to Stannis…some would say to a fault. However, it was Davos who saved Gendry from Melisandre’s fires, and he would not approve of Stannis sacrificing his own daughter. This may spell the end of Davos’ loyalty to Stannis Baratheon.
On Kerry Ingrams last day, Liam was asked if he did anything special for Kerry, after she filmed her last scene.
It was really sweet on the last day that we worked together. I had bought an Irish silver stag that I had made up for Kerry as a parting gift. When I handed it over she had bought this beautiful throw pillow with a stag on it, like the Baratheon sigil. We swapped stags. It was very touching in our little pop-up tent at the end of the day, when we were handing them over.
That’s incredibly heartwarming, and now I need to go wash this…umm…this dirt out of my eye…stupid allergies.
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