Game of Thrones showrunners and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau talk about losing that badass character

Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 3, titled ‘The Queen’s Justice’, aired today, and it had a lot of great moments. The episode ended with a great scene, with a big character taking our leave : Olenna Tyrell. Olenna had been a badass in the story, consistently, and we saw her depart this episode, as she drank a vial of poison that Jaime Lannister offered to her as a means of peaceful death, after he took over Highgarden with the Lannister forces. Olenna had her moment in the sun, however, leaving like a badass, telling Jaime how she conspired to murder their son,Joffrey Baratheon, and told her to let Cersei know that she was behind it. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss,and actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) recently spoke toEWabout losing this fan favourite character. Read on!

David first talked about how it all began :

“When we initially cast Diana Rigg, we met with Nina Gold, our legendary casting director, and we had tea with her. Dames don’t audition for you, you audition for them. And we loved her. She was funny, she was bawdy, she was everything we wanted for that character. We’ve been very lucky to write for these legendary actors — like Diana Rigg. Max Von Sydow, Jim Broadbent, and Charles Dance — people who have been doing it for so long and are so frickin’ good at what they do. She’s one of the best in the world and [Olenna’s final scene] is one of my favorites in the whole season. She really brought it.”

Dan continued :

“What I love about the way she plays the scene is that even though you leave the scene knowing she’s soon going to be dead shortly after you cut to black you still feel like she won. She’s probably the only character to win her own death scene.”

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau weighed in with his take on her performance :

“Olenna is like Cersei in so many ways, but just from our point of view she’s been on the ‘good’ side. And I just love how she goes out. She goes out with bite. She’s never going to beg. She did an amazing job. It was fun to be there and when we wrapped the showrunners came around and said a few words. She’s had a huge impact on the series”

He also said that while Jaime does kill her, he tries to be nice about it. David Benioff said that he hopes that she recieves recognition for her performance in her last season on the show. What do you think? Talk to us in the comments, down below!

 

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