Gwendoline Christie on Brienne’s internal turmoil
Making Game of Thrones, the official production diary for the show, has posted an interview with Gwendoline Christie in the wake of this week’s episode “High Sparrow.” That episode featured one of Christie’s finest scenes to date, in which she gave a monologue about how and why she became so loyal to Renly Baratheon.
The interview also touches on Brienne’s adventures in “The House of Black and White,” and Christie focused on how Littlefinger struck a nerve by focusing on her past failures.
She strode into this situation with strength, power, determination and positivity that she would rescue Sansa and move on – and, of course, that’s not what happens. She’s humiliated by this man… It is just crushing.
Christie also notes how Brienne sees something of herself in Podrick, “someone who has been marginalized as unsuitable to become what they want – a knight.” But the quote of the interview for me is the one Christie gives after being asked whether there’s a part of Brienne that wants the life that was suggested for her at that fateful ball:
I think what’s so beautiful and interesting about the character of Brienne of Tarth is yes, she’s strong; she’s a badass; she has vulnerability. But in all of her lack of convention and her uniqueness, all women can identify with her because she wants to be loved in the way that as human beings – male or female – we all want to be loved. We see the pureness of her humanity, and that she’s something that isn’t so far away from all of us.
It’s a very fine quote that speaks to both the universal and the specific appeal of Brienne as a character. I also think it’s something that comes across better on the screen than it does on the page, thanks in no small part to Christie’s performance—see, again, that monologue scene in “High Sparrow.” She also briefly touches on Brienne’s relationship with Jaime, praising Thrones for displaying “fresh representations of relationships between men and women, which are long overdue.”
And in contrast to Dean-Charles Chapman, Christie is totally a Ser Pounce fan. “I’m not a cat person at all but I think that cat has quite a lot of swagger.” Save it, print it, throw it up on the bedroom wall. Ser Pounce is all swag, no bag. (Get it? Because the cat’s in the… oh never mind.)
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