GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE

From Game Of Thrones to Star Wars, fan idol Gwendoline Christie is one of the hardest working actors in the business. With Thrones S7, Jane Campion’s Top Of The Lake and The Last Jedi all to come, Total Film meets an unstoppable force. words James mottra

Discarded headlines: ‘Captain Pha-ntastic’; ‘The Passions Of The Christie’.

Some actors blow past their fans on the red carpet with just a cursory wave. Gwendoline Christie is not like that. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, she spent hours giving selfies, signing autographs and letting the public get a piece of her. This is how it should be, she says, when TF debriefs her in a Riviera hotel the following day. “If people are coming up and greeting you with such positivity, then all you want to do is be nice back. We’re at the Cannes Film Festival – it’s not as if I can hide here!”

Indeed, Christie can’t really hide anywhere. At a striking 6ft 3in, she is today accentuating her height even further with a pair of red-and-white heels. Talk about confidence. Bullied for her size at school, she’s made it a selling point in her career – both as the fan-favourite warrior Brienne of Tarth in Game Of Thrones and as the First Order’s armour-plated villain Captain Phasma in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Ask her if she’s a role model for tall people everywhere, and she answers with absolute eloquence. “Ever since I was a child, I’ve never placed any sort of emphasis on the way that people look as a value system. I’ve never thought someone’s appearance governs really who they are. It’s something none of us have any control over, at all… for me [life] seemed more about one’s actions. So I don’t think of myself in any way other than just me, my work and my life, and what it is I want to do.”

If this makes her sound pompous, it’s not meant to. Christie is a delight to be around. Elisabeth Moss, her co-star in Jane Campion’s Top Of The Lake: China Girl – the reason for Christie’s appearance in Cannes – calls her “one of the most special actresses you will ever meet”. Wearing black trousers and a white jumper with a navy ribbon hanging off it, Christie comes equipped with an ear-shattering, decibel-busting laugh that strikes with no warning. No subtlety; just pure exuberance.