IRON LADY
will the valiant YARA GREYJOY vanquish her evil uncle, euron?
THERE’S NEVER BEEN a shortage of baddies in Game of Thrones, but the demise of sadistic Ramsay Bolton in the last season left a big villain-shaped hole in Sky Atlantic’s epic drama.
Happily, we have a new character we can love to hate.
Step forward King Euron Greyjoy, wicked uncle to Yara and Theon, who murdered their father Balon to seize the Salt Throne, and who’s now hunting down the young Greyjoys who have joined forces with Daenerys after fleeing with the Ironborn ships.
‘Euron is a fearless psycho pirate, and he’s angry,’ says
Borgen actor Pilou Asbaek, who plays him. ‘He instructed all of his Ironborn subjects to use every single bit of wood they could find to build the biggest fleet in the world and conquer Westeros.
‘He was going to join forces with Daenerys, but Yara stole his plan. So now he’s got to find some other ally. He’s got the ships, but he doesn’t have any power.’
So, with Daenerys and the Greyjoys crossing the Narrow Sea, and Euron on board his legendary ship, Silence, leading his Ironborn armada, are we set for the mother of all sea battles?
IRON WILL
Asbaek is keeping tight-lipped, but reveals that the results are spectacular.
‘I loved filming the scenes at sea, even though quite often they were done in a car park in Belfast using CGI,’ he laughs. ‘I got to be covered in blood, screaming, soaked through – I still have the scars. You’re going to see the destructive side of Euron this year, a fierce warrior who thinks he’s untouchable.’
BATTLE ROYALE
So, how will the young Greyjoys fare against their bloodthirsty uncle? Although Yara is more than capable of looking after herself, Theon is still recovering from his torture at the hands of Ramsay Bolton.
‘Yara thought she had Theon back as himself, as her Ironborn brother,’ says Gemma Whelan, who plays Yara.
‘But it seems that may not be quite the case yet. Yara and Theon left with such hope and then, very quickly, the wheels come off. And it’s diabolical really, the situation they find themselves in.’
Whelan says that she suffered plenty of aches and pains while training for her fight scenes at sea.
‘You practise your fights in a big tent with crash mats,’ she smiles. ‘And then suddenly it comes to shoot day and you’re on a slippery deck in the middle of the night.
‘We all had water thrown at us and then the crew brought out this gun that shoots burning embers to mimic fire. They didn’t warn us that was going to happen.
It looks awesome,
I’m sure, but we all ended up with these black-andred burns.’