Snakes and daggers
KEISHA CASTLE-HUGHES might be playing a fearless spear-wielding warrior woman in the new season of Game of Thrones but she met her match while shooting in Seville.
She and her fellow Sand Snakes — the badass daughters by different mothers of the late Oberyn Martell out to avenge his grim death near the end of season four — were relaxing between setups in the grounds of the Royal Alcazar, the Moorish palace which the show used as a set for scenes set in Dorne.
The trouble wasn’t the passionate Spanish fans or the tourists who couldn’t get in while
GoT took over the palace, but Alcazar’s natural residents.
“We had a yoga session, surrounded by peacocks,” giggles Jessica Henwick, “but Keisha has a deathly fear of birds. She was freaking out. She was not in her happy place.”
Henwick, 22, tells this story while seated in a London hotel alongside Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, 19, who with Castle-Hughes, 25, make up the three eldest Sand Snakes — a lethal trio in season five.
re‘ It quired a lot of training because you are just as likely to kill yourself as you are to kill someone else.
The Kiwi actress is spear-wielding Obara, the eldest. Brit Henwick plays the whip-cracking Nymeria and the Italian Laurenti Sellers (Tyene) employs daggers and poison to get her way.
Castle-Hughes isn’t present for publicity duties for reasons unknown. It’s understood HBO wasn’t happy with her talking about the show in an interview earlier this year. Back then she said: “We haven't seen women like this on Game of Thrones before. You have lone wolves like Arya and Brienne, and others like Daenerys or Cersei, who are politically strong surrounded by men. But you haven't seen women who are strong together and who collaborate — which is a dangerous thing. We're three girls who are violent and manipulative who are thirsty for Lannister blood.”
It’s easy to see how the three might spring from the same gene pool, even if the accents differ. (“We all grew up in different parts of Dorne,” offers Laurenti Sellers in her Italian tones, “It’s believable.”)
Then there was the fighting and weapons. Even before she got a script, Henwick had to learn how to safely use a bullwhip under the tutelage of UK-based Kiwi stunt co-ordinator Paul Shapcott. The others had to learn not to flinch every time she cracked the whip in a scene.
“It required a lot of training because you are just as likely to kill yourself as you are to kill someone else,” says Henwick.
And this being GoT, yes, some nudity was required.
Laurenti Sellers: “I have a nudish scene but it’s not sexual. I don’t have to do anything with anyone. I was a bit nervous about that but it turned out to be fine in the end.”
Being the new gals on the GoT block brings with it other pressures. Yes they might be hot, young, costumed in tight leather and chiffon, and bloodthirsty with it. But this is a pretty crowded world already.
Henwick: “If you look at last season, Oberyn was received so well by the fans that I am really just hoping that they kind of fall in love with us.”
Laurenti Sellers: “The scary thing is the fans already have an idea of what we should be like.”
Henwick: “It’s season five. There are so many narratives to the show that to show a new family we are quite restricted by time. So we had to get it out quickly. We had to very quickly understand who we are, what our relationship is and what do we want. So I hope the show has achieved that.”
So do they achieve their goal and quench that thirst?
Henwick: “Our motto is unbowed, unbent, unbroken, so that says that we just keep going until we die. There’s no failure. It’s either success or die.”