02x08 - The Queen Who Ever Was

[bunniefuu]

It felt like we were
in this other world.

There are dangerous
pitfalls and sinkholes.

I can handle mud wrestling,
but singing was the worst.

There were incredible challenges
sh**ting there.

I said to Geeta,
"This is an impossible shot."

Every time it happens, I was going,
"How is that working?"

Bring on the birds!

It's about to kick off.

Come on, let's go.

The cast has found

their characters this season

in a way that is really fun to see.

They've been able
to elevate the scenes

that were already wonderful.

We have five directors this season.

They are all incredibly talented.

Every director brings
their own perspectives

and it's been really fun

to dance with them each episode.

Every day I think the amount
of work that goes in.

Thank you to everyone

who does work on this show

because it is done
with such grandeur.

Everyone is so skilled
in their own department

that I just feel like

the luckiest girl in the world

to really be able to work
with these people.

Two years in

the sheer scope of it

still stuns me.

There's not an element of the day

that doesn't become

a pinch-me moment.

It's just turned into

something bigger and grander

than I ever could've imagined.

It's been incredible.

What a story to tell.

When Tyland Lannister
goes to the Tyroshi pavilion

we needed to create a new world
for him to feel uncomfortable in.

It's an opportunity for us

to explore this new world

that we haven't been to yet.

Geeta really seized
that opportunity with both hands

and got everybody around the table
to really build that world.

There was a good bit of concepting

to make it feel like

it was one cohesive world.

The exotic location is to feel
that this is a different culture

than the Westerosi culture
that we're used to seeing.

For the Tyroshi pavilion

I was trying to strike

a completely new vernacular
for that.

It's another look at
different architecture in the show.

Ryan and I started thinking
about all the things

that a Westerner would feel
uncomfortable around.

If you have to take off your shoes,
if you have to sit on the floor

if there are wild animals around you.

We started trying to create
a culture and put Tyland in it

make him uncomfortable.

Geeta wanted a really wide shot

introducing this place

in this really epic landscape.

The opening starts where
they've been sitting there for hours.

It was Geeta's idea that
we come in via a monkey.

We had a monkey. Yeah, Rosie.

The one issue was
Jefferson doesn't like monkeys.

I went up to the monkey handler

and I said,
"Is the monkey gonna be okay?"

And she said, "Oh yeah, she's lovely.

But if you look her in the eye,
she'll bite you in the face."

That monkey did not listen.

There was one point where Rosie

started veering off
towards Jefferson.

Jefferson could hear
the handler saying

"No, Rosie..."

So survived that,
but that was intimidating.

Admiral Lohar,
this is Tyland Lannister.

Well met, Lord Tywin.

It's Tyland.

Sharako is the commander
of this fleet.

She feels like one of these
very colorful characters

ripped right out of the pages
of George's books.

They really listened to me and asked

"Do you have ideas
for the character?"

So I said, "Yeah, I'd love
to take her in this dimension

that she's, like,
a female Blackbeard.

Like, what if I was
just absolutely like

covered in knives,
just had all this stuff?"

We made a nice ornate sword

which would sit on her hip

and eight different knives

and then it was working closely

with the costume department

as to where they would sit
on the body.

That had to be built into the look.

She has a waistcoat piece

and that's got all the trinkets

coins and things that she's pillaged.

I will not sail with a man
who cannot best me.

At... at what?

I put him through absolute hell.

I can handle mud wrestling,
but singing was the worst.

Cross the Narrow Sea
To the ladies of King's Landing

So it kinda worked. They're like,
"You really can't sing."

Well done, Lord Tyrod!

And Jefferson
is a natural comedic actor.

Having him reacting

to the bonkersness around him
is really enjoyable.

On reflection at the end
he looks back, you know

"Wow, that was a hell of a trip."

The banquet scene in Dragonstone
between Rhaenyra and her dragonriders

we wanted it to feel like a new space

so we shot it in the chamber
of the Painted Table

but we removed the table

and then we just wanted it
to feel like an intimate feast

that she's throwing for the riders
so that she can tell them...

you're going to w*r
and you might die.

I'm always, like, amazed

by the creativity

of the craftsmanship

of, like, pie, cakes

the puddings, the blancmanges.

So stunning.
And such a contrast, actually

to this granite brickwork
of Dragonstone.

I love the pomegranates

and those rich colors

and the figs and the artichokes.

What a beautiful thing that is.
It's like a little work of art.

I was trying to keep
the opulent colors

and use flowers as well
that they could hit light off

like pockets of fire almost.

Just try and give it
different tiered levels

so that you could have
different height

and candles amongst it.

And then I think
it really pops beautifully.

It's hard work training dragons,
you know?

So, just gotta store the protein
and get the carbs in, ya know?

I picked duck, which is probably a...

quite a bad decision

'cause we were
just eatin' the whole day.

Actors have got a thing
where if there is an eating scene

they'll go,
"I'll cut this raspberry in half

and I'll just pop that in."

I've got some raspberries
and blackberries.

I was like, "Do you know what?

We're gonna do
this take a lot of times

so I'm gonna munch on them berries."

I ate, probably

seven punnets of berries.

In King's Landing,
you haven't had meat for months

and suddenly,
we're sitting at a table

and there's plates of meat.

I think I had, like,
five slices of duck every take.

Before we'd even gotten
halfway through

he was, like, stuffed with duck.

Thanks very much. Ah, magic.

And I was just there
eatin' my berries like, "You guys."

I'm not eatin' a thing tonight.
It's gonna save me a fortune.

When you're the bloke saying,
"More little birds."

And some more of these little birds.

When those little birds arrive,
you have to f*cking eat them.

Bring on the birds!

Tom ate two birds a take.

I said more
of these little birds.

We're on bird
number eight, nine?

He ate so many quails.

There comes a point in the day

where you say to yourself

"Okay, I'm being paid
to eat birds today..."



"And I'm gonna
keep doing it until I'm sick."

He didn't look like
he was sufferin'

but maybe he's just
a really good actor.

Twenty.

I'm gonna make you all think

I'm so hungry

that you want to eat
the little birds.

Twenty-four.

At some point,
he's gonna have to stop.

It was over 30.

Thirty quails.

I said more of these little birds.

A knight will comport himself
with grace at the Queen's table.

Best make me a knight, then.

Coming into second season
and having the honor

of directing the final vision
was quite amazing for me.

Do you wish then to learn
what is given to you?

We wanted Daemon
to have this final experience

that was undeniable to him.

These visions are going
to change his world outlook.

Ryan and Sara put together
a list of all the things

that needed to be in the vision,
and then it was up to me

to visually connect everything
and stylize it.

We came up with a tableau
that really told the story quickly

with a palpable feeling.

We shot the beginning
as a dire wolf point of view

running through the snowy forest.

This wave of White Walkers
starts walking towards you

and you just smash
into their face, basically.

Come on, that's cool.

In preparing
for the White Walker scene

we definitely went back
to Game of Thrones.

We looked at how
their eyes were depicted.

We looked at makeup.
We looked at costumes.

We're very lucky to have
people on our crew

who actually worked

on the White Walkers

in Game of Thrones

who were able to sorta tell us

what kinda color palette
we should be using

to stay consistent
with what's gone before.

From the time we knew
we were gonna do a White Walker

we had our performer in mind,
Paul Casey.

He's a movement performer,
stunt coordinator

and he's got a very
measured way of moving.

And Paul was amazing.

He's like a prosthetics veteran.

So he's like a statue
when you're stickin' stuff on him.

An old pro.

The first thing we need to do

- is just get all the basics right.
- Timing, yes.

The set got quite busy.

As soon as Paul came on set
in his White Walker makeup

it suddenly started
buzzing a little bit.

All of a sudden,
there's 150 people in there

and I thought, the only reason
all these people are here

is 'cause of these White Walkers,
but I couldn't blame them.

One, two, three, four, five.

Marching.

There were 20 undead,
slashes down their faces

prosthetic cheekbones,
contact lenses, dentures.

Our man who played
the hero wight upstairs

with his teeth as part of the bust.

We had the costume department
green out areas

so it appeared as though

they were skeletons or missing limbs

and stuff like that.

It's just gonna be
a really powerful part

of the end of the series, I think.

Better.

The White Walker moment

was something
that took me back to the roots

of why I love George's writing

and why I love
this world and this story.

This sequence is a way of showing

how our series does interconnect
with that future series

and the events that are happening now
do have an impact

on how that future
is going to play out.

Daemon is the one
who finds these eggs

and then we're goin' to see him

have a vision

of Daenerys's eggs in the fire

which are the fossilized
lichen-covered eggs.

It's been really fun
to make sure that

these are glisteny,
shiny, lovely eggs

that you could believe would hatch

and then get to display
Dany's eggs again

which are canon to Game of Thrones.

All of these epic tentpoles

of Game of Thrones universe
were there.

What Geeta did, which was incredible

was sort of piece them all together
into a narrative

and have it have this arc.

It brings a lot of the different
elements of this great

brilliant show that
we're all part of together.

And I think that's really exciting.

You know your part.

There is a message from Harrenhal,
Your Grace.

Daemon has raised his army,
but Ser Simon fears treachery.

Harrenhal is a Riverlands location.

It's often ensconced in fog and mist.

When our line producer
showed us this location

all of us looked at it and said

"That's the basis for Harrenhal."

I loved Wales.
I just can't get over the landscape.

And the location was extraordinary.

It felt like we were
in this other world.

I had some ideas
of how Harrenhal should be

before we went to Wales,
but then, most definitely

those Welsh locations fed into
the whole design process.

It just felt like a perfect place

to stage a very lonely castle

to sit in a totally desolate

epic landscape.

Addam, come with me.

Daemon and Rhaenyra
approach Harrenhal via a dragon.

The approach to Harrenhal

was one that we spent
a lot of time mapping it out

with visual effects in previs

but then when we had
an actual location

it was important for us
to take a drone up

and see what that approach
would be like.

When Rhaenyra flies in

that was massively complicated

'cause Harrenhal's so big

and we wanted to try
and capture that scale

but also capture the island
and the Gods Eye lake.

As she flies around Harrenhal

she just sees troops
and troops and troops...

through visual effects,
then extended to thousands of army.

If you read the books

these armies were


We literally were doing the maths

on how many tents we would need

to house about 30,000.

It's just a massive scale of army.

This quarry had
this magnificent ramp.

We really wanted to stage
the scene on the ramp

because from the ramp is this
incredible view down the valley.

But we had to get
very special permission

to get everybody up on that ramp

because it's a rather
dangerous place to be.

There are dangerous
pitfalls and sinkholes

and sheer shafts of stone
and reservoir runoffs.

Anything that's off the beaten track,
which that most certainly is

and literally up a single road track

halfway up a mountain,
is always gonna be difficult

when you've got
that amount of infrastructure

that comes with
sh**ting a show like this.

There were incredible
challenges sh**ting there

from a number of levels,
but it was so worth it.

Those days are the ones
you get home and think

"Oh, we did it. We got it done."

Welcome to Harrenhal, my queen.

I did not think
to see you here yourself.

When we did Daemon

bending the knee to Rhaenyra

we did it on a blue screen stage.

We used some very high cranes.

We had a 70-foot crane
on that occasion

and a 40-foot crane working together.

We thought of the scene

"King in the North"
with Jon Snow.

We also thought of,
even from last season

when Aegon gets crowned.

There's all these
"sword in the air" moments

in cinema history
and in Game of Thrones history.

We had quite a lot of people

but we need to make it a full army.

We shot different elements
of this army

in order to replicate them

and... and make it much, much bigger.

It's also that castle environment
outside of the windows, towers

and other pieces of architecture.

By the time
the visual effects department

have put their touch to it

I think it will be
a spectacular sequence.

We fight for our queen!

Ladies and gentlemen,
that is a season wrap on Emma.

I would take my daughter

and her child
and leave it all behind.

It's too late.

We end the season
with Rhaenyra having been left

with the burden of decision

whether to move forward with the w*r

or trust Alicent and take the throne.

Go.

We pop out of that
very intimate moment

to remind people that
armies are on the march

and all of these big pieces
on the chessboard are moving.

The montage was a very exciting thing

to read on a page, very epic.

We storyboarded it first
to get an idea of how it would flow

and we really wanted
the camera to be moving

and show the epic scale.

We designed
very specific shots, really

for the different armies.

The shot on the bridge,
when we boarded it

I said to Geeta,
"This is an impossible shot.

I have no idea how to do this."

It was one of those things
that we previs'd and we were like

"I don't think you can sh**t that."

Sometimes you have to build something

which is what we did
in that circumstance.

I described how we wanted
the camera to move

and what we wanted it to do.

Working with our team,
we figured it out.

My brilliant key grip, Alex Fraser

designed a system
that would run on ropes

that were controlled
by guys pushin' dollies.

I had two tracks
parallel to each other



It worked beautifully.
It was exactly what we wanted.

Three, two, one, action!

We'd start at a height of about


And as the army marched towards us,
we approached on these cables.

We got lower and lower
through moving dollies.

I had one grip to travel
the camera on the wire.

And I had another to descend it down.

Alex caught the camera

and then we do
an extraordinary pan around.

Even with me stood there
watching it on the monitor

knowing all my background

and stepping out of the way
of the camera and stepping back in

every time it happens,
I was looking at the monitor going

"How is that working?"

It was an incredible shot
that is gonna

pickle people's brains
for a little bit, I think.

We then drop down between the army
and saw their boots going past us

about 40 or 50 soldiers.

They really gave us
a very hard challenge

which I was very proud of
my grip team and camera team

because I think we met it
and it's a very spectacular shot

right at the end of this season.

I think it's gonna be a powerful
moment in the end of episode eight

jumping through all these characters
and all their story arcs.

When you cut it all together

you really want it to send chills
down everybody's spines

and to be this memorable thing
that everybody thinks about

while they wait for
the next season to come out.

It's definitely our show saying

"You gotta come back
and see what happens next."

The end of the episode
is like a boiling pot.

It's incredibly exciting
knowing that, now

there are so many more dragonriders.

It certainly doesn't look too good

for Team Green.

You shouldn't be puttin' your eggs
in one basket at this point.

The pendulum could swing
the other way very quickly.

It's about to kick off big time.
That's what I have to say.

It's been an incredible experience

to see the things that we wrote
on the page come to life

and to see the hundreds
and hundreds of people

that have poured their talent into it

is humbling and exciting

and it's a once-in-a-lifetime
experience, definitely.

I'm just intensely grateful
for all of you

and I'm in awe of the incredible
talent and effort, dedication

and the fact that you
all still are smiling

which touches my heart.

I feel kind of like Ulf
at the very end of his story

right before Silverwing finds him.

I've been running through a cave
in the dark with a torch.

I'm quite tired,
but I think I claimed the dragon

and I'm very proud of all the work

that the writers, directors, cast,
and crew have done on this show

and I'm very, very grateful for it.