Game of Thrones actor Gwendoline Christie has transformed her body to fully embody all that Brienne, the Maid of Tarth, has to be. In a new interview, she talks about the process and the mental barriers she had to overcome.
Christie speaks very frankly about working to become Brienne in an interview with The Jitty, describing the physical transformation she went through after reading the books and deciding that she wanted to resemble the character as closely as possible.
She describes first having to lose a lot of weight, and then gain it back in muscle through a combination of yoga and martial arts. After this process, when she began working on the show, she says:
They cut my hair off. I don’t wear any make up in the show and there are certain things that they do, and I put a lot of weight on, on my face and so on. I also started wearing a lot of unisex clothing all of the time, stopped wearing heels. I was training three or four times a week, and was eating lots of proteins.
Mentally, Christie also tried to make herself as close to Brienne as she could, “Tapping back into the similarities and differences between the character and I.” One of those similarities, she says, is being outdoors:
That person exists outside, and I’ve always been as what some people would regard as a very outdoorsy type person. I love being outdoors, the countryside. That’s where she (Brienne) exists, that’s her realm.
However, Christie admits that she struggled to accept her new physique, just as Brienne in the story struggles with hers. She says:
I suffered from [vanity] the first time I saw episode three on TV when it was broadcast. I found it very hard. Very very hard, you know, because that is me. Vanity, and the want to be beautiful all the time. Brienne is an aspect of me. I’m not really interested in being that sort of actor, but of course there is that part of me that would just love to be in a flowing evening gown with amazing hair and make up, in a gorgeous kind of film noire look. Of course that’s there too!
Still, Christie says that she feels, “hugely privileged to be part of such a brilliant project that has so much integrity, and such great work put into it,” and describes working on the show as being part of something majestic.
Thanks to Game of Owns for the link to this article!
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