Septa Unella’s torture scene in the Season 6 finale of “Game of Thrones” was — for many Cersei Lannister fans, at least — satisfying to watch. But it was quite traumatic to film, according to Hannah Waddingham, who portrayed the oft-memed villain. In the scene, Lannister (Lena Headey) exacts revenge on her tormentor by pouring wine on her face and demanding she confess her sins. Filming lasted for 10 hours. “‘Thrones’ gave me something I wasn’t expecting from it, and that is chronic claustrophobia,” Waddingham said during an appearance Tuesday on “The
Late Show With
Stephen Colbert.” Waddingham said she was “actually waterboarded” while filming. “It was horrific,” said the “Ted Lasso” star. “I’m strapped to a table with all these leather straps and I couldn’t lift up my head ’cause they said, ‘That’s going to be too obvious that it’s loose.’ And I was like, ‘Right, I’d quite like it to be loose.’” The process was so brutal that, at one point, Headey purposely aimed her pour away from her co-star’s face, she previously admitted to Business Insider . Waddingham told Colbert that the “Game of Thrones” cast’s commitment to such gruesome scenes is “the reason why I don’t believe it’s touched yet in terms of the cinematography of it, for a series.” “It’s just a different level,” she said, adding that during an elevator ride that day, she related her experience to another
Actor who — upon seeing her grape juice-stained hair and leather strap marks — asked her concernedly, “What has happened to you?” After telling him about the ordeal, he replied, “Well, you’re lucky, I’ve just been crawling through s— on my elbows for four days.” “It kind of doesn’t matter when you’re in ‘Thrones’ because you just want to give the best [performance],” Waddingham said. Though the strap marks she sustained on the “Game of Thrones” set are long gone, the actor showed off some new battle scars during her Tuesday talk show appearance — sustained on the set of her latest movie, “The Fall Guy,” which will be released May 3. While filming a scene with a male co-star, she said, “I was complaining that, you know, just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t get involved with the shizzle,” she told Colbert. “So I was like, ‘I would like to punch him, please.’” Waddingham called the scars her “badge of honor.”