Game Of Thrones Actor Claims On-Set 'Waterboarding' Gave Her Chronic Claustrophobia
"Game of Thrones" has no shortage of gruesome moments, from Pedro Pascal's Oberyn Martell losing a trial by combat in the grossest way possible to the shocking Season 1 beheading of Ned Stark (Sean Bean). According to actress Hannah Waddingham, one of the on-screen torture scenes was actually really brutal.
During an interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert, Waddingham said that she developed a condition after filming scenes for "Game of Thrones" where her character Septa Unella — a fanatical, devoted Septa of the Faith of the Seven and acolyte of Jonathan Pryce's High Sparrow — is waterboarded with wine by Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey). "'Thrones' gave me something I wasn't expecting from it, which was chronic claustrophobia," Waddingham told Colbert. "It was horrific. Ten hours of being actually waterboarded. Like actually. I'm strapped to a table with all these leather straps. I couldn't lift up my head because I said that would be too obvious that it's loose."
Waddingham then said that after shooting, she was covered in grape juice (which stood in for real wine), she'd lost her voice thanks to an actor holding his hand over her mouth while she screamed during the scene, and she was covered in marks from the straps ... at which point she ran into another (unnamed) actor. "One of the other guys who had been shooting something else was like, 'You're lucky, I've just been crawling through sh** on my elbow for four days,'" she recalled. 'It kind of doesn't matter when you're in 'Thrones.' You just want to give the best."
The original scene with Septa Unella was much more graphic — and was changed completely
As it turns out, the original scene where Septa Unella is punished by Cersei Lannister — after the Septa forced Cersei to walk through King's Landing naked to atone for her own crimes — was way worse, as Waddingham told Collider in 2021. Apparently, Cersei's zombie henchman Gregor Clegane, known as the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), was supposed to sexually assault the Septa, but Waddingham said that the show had been heavily critiqued for the on-screen assault of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) in Season 5, so she thought perhaps they'd changed course. She also said that belief was confirmed when she was flying to Belfast to film and was told she'd need a wetsuit top ... and thought they'd made a mistake.
"They were like, 'Oh, it's going to be waterboarding instead,'" she recalled. "And I was like, 'But we're not actually doing waterboarding.' And they were like, 'No, no, no, we are.'"
Waddingham went on to say that filming the waterboarding scene was the "worst day of her life" aside from childbirth, and that Headey was also uncomfortable over the fact that she had to actually waterboard Waddingham. "It definitely gave me claustrophobia around water," she said. "It's quite full on being waterboarded for 10 hours—and then, for only one minute and 37 seconds to be used on camera." Still, she said that she didn't want to disappoint by refusing to film ... and she trusted the people around her.
Ultimately, Hannah Waddingham put her trust in the crew of Game of Thrones
As she told Collider, Hannah Waddingham ultimately said that even though the situation was undoubtedly harrowing — again, it can't be stressed enough that she was actually being waterboarded — she decided to put her total trust in the film crew. Waddingham said that she was afraid to have the strap around her neck be quite tight, but she was told that if she naturally lifted her head in self-defense, it wouldn't look "authentic." Then, co-creator Dan Weiss gave her some unsettling news about just how much wine would be dumped on her during the process.
"'Look, in the script it says Cersei empties the remainder of her glass of red wine to wake up Unella,'" Waddingham said, quoting Weiss. "'People aren't going to think that's enough. That is not enough retribution for Cersei. It needs to be three-quarters full or so—if we can cheat it, even more—of a carafe of wine.'
In the end, Waddingham knew that the powers that be at HBO wouldn't actually put her in true danger: "The one thing I kept thinking to myself was the production company aren't going to let you die, so get on with it, be uncomfortable."
After Game of Thrones, Hannah Waddingham became a huge star thanks to Ted Lasso
Thankfully, Hannah Waddingham's post-"Game of Thrones" career got a whole lot happier ... and, as of this writing, none of it has involved more waterboarding. The British actress has been a stage performer for much of her career, appearing in musicals in London's West End like "Spamalot" (as the Lady of the Lake) and "Into the Woods" (as the Witch), and you can spot her in one key scene with Anne Hathaway's Fantine in a factory in the 2012 film adaptation of "Les Misérables." It was an AppleTV+ hit, though, that catapulted Waddingham into sudden superstardom.
These days, Waddingham is best known for her role as AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton on the smash hit "Ted Lasso," where she's given a great role as a scorned ex-wife turned supportive colleague alongside Jason Sudeikis' title character. Playing Rebecca earned Waddingham an Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy in 2021, and since then, she's scored roles in shows like "Sex Education" and films like "Hocus Pocus 2." Waddingham is now a beloved star ... and though it's tough to realize that she went through hell for "Game of Thrones," it just goes to show that she's a devoted and committed actress who will give a performance everything she's got.