Content Warning: This article includes mentions and a description of a torture scene which appeared in Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 10, alongside spoilers for that season.
Game of Thrones star Hannah Waddingham, the actress behind the infamous Septa Unella who marched Cersei Lannister through the streets chanting "shame", has said she was left with chronic claustrophobia by her character's torture scene.
Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Waddingham said filming her character's final scene had her strapped to a platform and "actually waterboarded" for around 10 hours.
Unella was a follower of a militant religious movement called the Sparrows and, in an attempt to make Cersei repent for her sins, kept her locked in prison and treated her poorly. Cersei eventually escaped and sought revenge on Unella, pouring red wine over her face before saying she'd be subjected to a slow and painful death.
"Thrones gave me something I wasn't expecting from it and that is chronic claustrophobia," Waddingham said. "I've talked about it since with David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the two executive producers of it. I was like, good job it's for them because it was horrific. 10 hours of being actually waterboarded. Like actually waterboarded.
"Thrones is such a... The reason why I don't believe it's touched yet in terms of the cinematography of it for a series: it's just a different level. With that comes actual waterboarding. So I'm strapped to a table with all these leather straps and I couldn't lift up my head because they said it will be too obvious that it's loose. I said, 'right, I'd quite like it to be loose.'"
After filming the scene, Waddingham said she spoke with another cast member who'd just been "crawling through s**t" on his elbows for four days. "It kind of doesn't matter when you're in Thrones because you just want to give the best," she said, though has previously described it as the worst day of her life, "other than childbirth".
Game of Thrones ended in 2019 on somewhat of a sour note following seven seasons of largely beloved TV. IGN gave it a 6/10 in our review, saying: "Though Season 8 was underwhelming, Game of Thrones remains more ambitious and engaging than the majority of other TV shows."
Several Game of Thrones spin-offs are set to keep the legacy going though. House of the Dragon, which will debut its second season in June 2024, tells the history of Game of Thrones' Targaryen family (from which Daenerys comes) and Season 1 spans around 20 years by itself. Dunk and Egg is more focused and will tell the story of a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, also of Daenerys' lineage, Aegon V Targaryen.
Other spin-offs that have surfaced include 10,000 Ships, which is set 1,000 years before Game of Thrones; Snow, which follows Kit Harrington's Jon Snow after the events of the main show; The Sea Snake, which is about House Velaryon and its head Lord Corlys; and more.
Other series have risen and fallen over the years too, including one cancelled project based on The Long Night and Age of Heroes that HBO spent $30 million on.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
