'Game of Thrones' Cast: Filming the Red Wedding 'Shattered' Them
Nearly six years later, we're still traumatized by the Red Wedding scene in "Game of Thrones," and so are the actors who filmed it.
In a new oral history, the cast told EW how gut-wrenching it was for the five emotional days they filmed one of the most shocking sequences in TV history.
It was possibly the worst for Oona Chaplin, who played Robb's pregnant wife, Talisa as she was the first to be killed. (In the book, she isn't part of the Red Wedding.)
Recalls Chaplin: "I was praying for a cool death and when I read [the script] I was like, "F—, everyone dies!' But even when it was on the page it was nothing compared to what it was like on the day.... I was actually crying while I was dead. The director had to come over [and tell me], 'Oona, you need to stop crying, dead people don’t cry. You’re dead, just be dead.'"
It was also rough on Michelle Fairley who is the last Stark standing after the bloodbath. Her character Catelyn manages to take one of Frey’s young wives hostage, but it doesn't make any difference. Her son, Robb (Richard Madden) is killed anyway and she chooses to kill the girl, knowing she's also already dead.
Says showrunner David Benioff, "Michelle is such a powerhouse… [it’s] one of the greatest death scenes that’s ever been shot. Her performance in that scene is just epic."
Madden recalls, "It was, Michelle and I, our last scene on 'Game of Thrones.' It had been an exhausting five-day shoot. We were mentally exhausted. I cried my eyes out, completely, as did a lot of the crew and other actors. It was very emotional. The wrap party was that night, but I had to start filming another job the next day. So I washed my blood off and got on a plane."
How shook up was Fairley? She didn't talk to anyone for a week. "We tried to call Michelle afterwards. She wasn’t answering," says showrunner D.B. Weiss. "A week later she wrote an email saying, "Sorry, I haven’t been able to talk to anybody because I’ve been so shattered."
We know just how she feels! We're still not over it.
Read the whole oral history of the Red Wedding at EW.