Game of Thrones was Nathalie Emmanuel’s big break. Before the HBO epic, Emmanuel was a regular on the British drama Hollyoaks. Thanks to Game of Thrones, she later joined the Fast and the Furious franchise and Hulu’s Four Weddings and A Funeral adaptation. Emmanuel admits Game of Thrones was her dream, one she never expected to achieve.
Emmanuel was a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast on Aug. 23 to discuss her new movie The Invitation. Looking back on Game of Thrones, Emmanuel revealed she never expected to make it on the show, and she kind of freaked out when she arrived on set.
Nathalie Emmanuel chased ‘Game of Thrones’
Emmanuel said she considered Game of Thrones her dream. She was also realistic as an actor starting out, so actually getting the audition surprised her.
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“This was a game changer and that is like not an understatement,” Emmanuel said on Happy Sad Confused. “I mean, I was a fan of the show, yes. I kind of annoyed my agent for a while about getting an audition. But I never actually thought that that was possible. It’s been spoken of why yeah, they didn’t particularly cast people of color hugely in regular leading roles. So I was so like this is mine when it came, the opportunity came and I was like oh my goodness. And then it dawned on me that I actually had to do it now.”
Nathalie Emmanuel fangirled out on the ‘Game of Thrones’ set
When Emmanuel won the role of Missandei, she went to her first table reading of a script with the cast. She was intimidated until one cast member helped her out.
“There were no words to describe how excited I was, how terrified I was,” Emmanuel said. “I remember being at the first read through and just standing terrified in the corner as like all the lead cast. Oh my god, it’s Catelyn Stark. There’s Sam Tarly. Just being a proper fangirl in the corner. Actually, it was Finn Jones who I’d actually met on a previous job who was like, ‘Nathalie, do you want me to help you find a seat?’ It was amazing.”
The show lived up to her expectations
Emmanuel dreamed of playing a character from Westeros. Actually being in Croatia surpassed all of her expectations.
“The thing that was so amazing about it was suddenly you’re stepping into these worlds that you walk onto the set, you put on your costume, everything feels so real,” Emmanuel said. “You’re like oh, I’m in it. I’m really in it. It’s mind-blowing. I hadn’t quite been around big set pieces like that before. Everything that I had done before was very modern and just in a pub, in a shop, in someone’s house. This very high concept stuff.”
Emmanuel also appreciated how warm and welcoming Game of Thrones fans were.
“I hadn’t necessarily experienced that before and it was amazing,” Emmanuel said. “It’s so sweet and you realize there’s a real art to making fantasy feel grounded and real. That’s what I think Game of Thrones did so well, the tonal nature of it. The supernatural elements or fantasy elements were so well ingrained that you didn’t actually realize they were particularly supernatural.”
