The Game of Thrones actors Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau have done a number of interviews discussing Jaime and Cersei’s journeys in season 2. Beware of spoilers.

Speaking to LA Times, Lena Headey talks about Cersei’s true character:

I think she is deeply, deeply fearful. She sleeps with fear in her soul. She is full of terror and paranoia and insecurity. She hides it with stillness.

In the same interview, executive producer David Benioff weighs in on casting Lena:

We never thought of Cersei as a particularly funny character until Lena read for the part. We had seen a number of excellent actresses, but everyone had interpreted the character as an emotionless ice queen. Lena took her in a different, stranger and more interesting direction.

In an interview with EW, Lena discusses her “masochistic mentor relationship” with Sansa, saying:

She can’t help but torture her. I think that’s driven by her envy. She’s just f–king mean all season.

As for Jaime? Nikolaj Coster-Waldau says:

He is away from [his sister] and it drives him crazy. So he’s not in a happy place. He says it himself this season that he is not quite well equipped for imprisonment.

He also talks about how Cersei and Jaime are some of the only characters motivated primarily by love:

It’s ironic, but it’s true. All these other players are like pawns in this game that just get moved around by their families. But these two … what they have it was just too powerful too ignore. I think the core of Jaime Lannister is actually that final line in the pilot when he says, ‘the things I do for love.’ He might do horrible things — and they are truly, some of them, horrific. There’s no excuses. But he does it out of what he sees as a necessity, out of love.

Are you ready for the big Game of Thrones return on Sunday?!