Game of Thrones stars open up about ‘horrendous’ experience filming torture scene for real

Lena Headey and Hannah Waddingham have opened up about filming Game of Thrones’ “traumatic” waterboarding scene for real.

Over the past few months, both actors have discussed how challenging they found shooting the scene, which saw Cersei Lannister torture Waddingham’s Septa Unella.

Headey, who previously said that Waddingham “had a really s*** time doing that scene”, described the experience as “horrendous”.

In an interview with the pair for Entertainment Weekly, Waddingham, who stars in Ted Lasso, said: “I wanted to ask you, which we never really talk about because I think both of us found it quite traumatic at the time – our waterboarding, or rather wineboarding, scenes.”

She continued: “People are always quite shocked that that actually did happen in reality and there was nothing CGI’d. One thing I’ve said a lot is that both of us were quite uncomfortable about it, but as with all these things, you know that they’re not actually going to kill you so you just get on with it and do it.

Headey stated: “Yes, that was, for you, horrendous,” adding: “Someone else asked me about that the other day and I was like, you know, as an actor we all have boundaries or no boundaries. And no boundaries are obviously very thrilling when you can go to a place… but something like that when you’re tied down [during filming for 10 hours], it made me feel horrendous doing that scene with you.”

Waddingham, who acknowledged that “it made wicked telly”, said that the experience brought them closer together.

Game of Thrones is available to stream on NOW. Ted Lasso is available to stream on Apple TV+.

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