It’s always nice to see Game of Thrones alumni in other shows and movies, and this past Wednesday Obi-Wan Kenobi served up a big treat when Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand) made her debut as Tala, an Imperial officer with a big secret. Her performance was one of the high points of an excellent episode.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Varma discussed what it meant to her to join the Star Wars universe, acting opposite Pedro Pascal and Ewan McGregor, and her turn on Game of Thrones. Fair warning that this article will contain some SPOILERS for the latest episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Indira Varma didn’t “feel served” by Star Wars growing up
Tala played a big role in the latest episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi. After being stranded on the planet Mapuzo, Obi-Wan and a young Princess Leia rely on Tala as they attempt to escape the Empire. Tala is an Imperial officer, but is also secretly helping the earliest iteration of the Rebellion.
“[Tala] joined the Empire and became disillusioned witnessing some of the stuff that they get up to, and she sort of works for the Resistance,” Varma explained. “She’s a code switcher. But, she maintains her Imperial status because it means that she can go from different worlds and be more useful to our friends. She’s a really great woman, and she has, in her view, nothing to lose because she feels she’s atoning for the bad things that have been done in the past.”
Tala is a standout character in an episode filled with standout characters, including the return of Hayden Christensen (and James Earl Jones) as Darth Vader. Tala feels like she would have fit right in among the Star Wars classics, which is somewhat ironic, as the actor didn’t “feel served” by Star Wars growing up.
“I’ve talked a little bit about this before: As a young girl growing up in England, I didn’t particularly feel served by Star Wars because it was predominantly male,” Varma said. “Princess Leia, that was my hero because I had long hair I could do in those lovely wraps, but it didn’t feel like it was for me. And just watching over the decades how it’s evolved and become more modern and reflects the society — it’s become very exciting to be part of it and not just in terms of gender but also in terms of ethnicity and diversity. I feel so privileged because of the way they tell stories.”
There’s something especially beautiful about Varma discussing Princess Leia being her Star Wars hero as a child, considering that Obi-Wan Kenobi played up the idea that Tala is one of Leia’s first real female role models.
Image: Game of Thrones/HBO
Game of Thrones vs Star Wars
Of course, this isn’t Varma’s first go at a huge franchise. She also starred as Ellaria Sand in Game of Thrones. However, despite the fact that Game of Thrones was a massive hit, the actor felt a lot more pressure joining Star Wars. “What’s different about Star Wars, obviously, is the fact that it’s been around for 45 years. That’s my life!” she said, laughing. “It’s a lot of people’s lifetimes, whereas Game of Thrones is different. It’s shorter. So entering into Star Wars, as it’s known globally, is very exciting and quite daunting.”
Being a part of both of these huge franchises also mean that Varma has worked with some incredible actors. In Obi-Wan Kenobi she acts opposite Ewan McGregor; in Thrones she often shared scenes with her on-screen love interest Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell). Pascal has also made the leap over to Star Wars as the star of The Mandalorian. What has it been like to work with these two great actors?
“You just continue to adore them,” Varma said. “And why do we adore them? Because they’re bloody good, and they’re also really lovely human beings! Ewan, I don’t know how he’s managed to stay with his feet so firmly planted on the ground. He’s incredibly professional, there’s no kind of diva quality. If he wasn’t quite so good looking, you’d think he was just a normal bloke. He’s so invested and he’s playful. I mean, they’re both playful. That’s one of the joys, you get on set, and you know you’re going to have a laugh — sometimes too much of a laugh.”
Indira Varma reflect on bloody Game of Thrones scenes
Varma also reflected on some of her biggest moments from Game of Thrones. Unsurprisingly, the final sequence in “The Mountain and the Viper,” where Oberyn Martell meets his untimely end at the hands of Gregor Clegane, was one of them.
“It was demanding for Pedro because he’d had to train for so long to be up to speed with that incredible fight,” Varma recalled. “And then we were filming in Croatia just outside Dubrovnik in the summer on the side of a mountain by the ocean. It was really hot and the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) who is a strongman, he was losing weight literally by the hour because he was sweating so much inside his gear. So yeah, it was intense. But the downtime, when we were waiting for the changes, was so fun because we were all there playing Scrabble and just chatting.”
Varma also discussed her death scene. In season 7, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) finally captures Ellaria and her daughter Tyene Sand (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers). Rather than kill them quickly, Cersei locks them in a black cell beneath King’s Landing, poisons Tyene with the same poison Ellaria used to kill Cersei’s daughter Myrcella in season 5, and leaves them down there to rot. It’s a dark ending for the character, which was somehow all the more effective because we never actually saw Ellaria die.
Initially though, Varma had some reservations about the fact that her character was going to die offscreen. “It was funny because [showrunners] Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff] gave me the call to say you’re going to die — and it’s expected. Who doesn’t die on Thrones? But I was like, ‘Well, I better bloody die on camera and it better be good!’ And then I read it, and I was really disappointed because she doesn’t actually die on camera. But I thought about it and reread that scene, and I thought, ‘That is just perfect.’ It’s a perfect ending to be killed the way we killed her.”
You can catch Indira Varma in Obi-Wan Kenobi, streaming now on Disney+. Beyond that, she’ll be starring in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One with Tom Cruise, in the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations, and in a UK stage production of The Seagull with fellow Game of Thrones vet Emilia Clarke. Varma’s busy and we couldn’t be happier for her!
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