Game of Thrones may be absent from our Sunday nights until 2019 (or at least until it barrels through next year’s Emmy Awards), but that doesn’t mean we’ve exactly been lacking in updates about our favorite swords-and-dragons show. Though you may not have known it, for the past few weeks, HBO has been unspooling bits and pieces of behind-the-scenes glimpses at Season 7 in a series called “The Game Revealed.” (Click here if you haven’t eaten recently and want to know just how much work went into turning actor Iain Glen into a crusty, greyscale-infected mess.) The latest video in the series covers one of the most universally popular moments of the past season: the fight between Brienne of Tarth and Arya Stark of Winterfell.
There was already a lot to admire in this scene, from the thematic reveals to the impressive fact that the right-handed Maisie Williams has to (at her own insistence) train for all her fight scenes using her left hand. (In the books, Arya, like Inigo Montoya, fights left-handed.) But what we didn’t know is that at least some version of the fight involved some insane acrobatics. It’s probably wise that the show cut these extra tumbling moves.
Those are Gwendoline Christie and Maisie Williams’s stunt doubles at work there, and at least one of them makes another appearance in the video. Though I wasn’t foolish enough to think that Williams had done every single step of this fight herself, I was surprised to see her double execute one of the showstopping moves: a flip followed by an elaborate sword flourish. Thanks to some seamless C.G.I. work on the double’s face, I thought for sure that was Williams executing the move on screen.
There’s precedence for Williams (who, remember, was a dancer and gymnast before she was an actress) doing her own stunts. She took a 14-foot leap off a balcony for that foot chase with the Waif in Season 6. So it wasn’t a complete stretch to imagine she might have been able to pull this move off. But Williams has also always been very generous about her stunt doubles, reserving specific praise for the woman who was hired on last year whom she called “fit” a “trooper” and “incredible.” Though that wasn’t always the case: “I’ve had stunt doubles before where—they were lovely girls—but they didn’t look like me,” she told TVLine in 2016. “I didn’t buy it. Like, I don’t look at you from behind and think that you look like me. And that means the audience is gonna be the same. They’re gonna be like, ‘That’s not Arya!’ And instead of watching a fight scene like, ‘Oh my gosh girl, get up! Get up!,’ you’re going to be going, ‘That wasn’t even Maisie!’”
Williams doesn’t name her double in that or any other interview, nor is it easy to find her name online. Williams was also disinclined to point out specifically which moves, other than that balcony leap, she executed herself in Season 6. This is likely all part of Thrones wanting to keep the mystery alive. But now that they’ve pulled back the curtain on who did what in this particular fight, it’s worth praising Williams (and Christie) for one very specific piece of fancy foot and hand work. The final grapple, which includes a lightning-quick flip of the dagger for Arya, appears to have been all them.
Here’s hoping we see even more training for the Northern women—perhaps involving little Lady Mormont?—in Season 8.
Dragonstone, a.k.a. San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Spain.
Left; courtesy of HBO, Right; by Alberto Loyo/REX/Shutterstock.
Casterly Rock, a.k.a. Castle of Trujillo, Caceres, Spain.
Left; courtesy of HBO, Right; from KarSol/REX/Shutterstock.
Dragonstone Beach, a.k.a. Itzurun Beach, Spain.
Left; by Macall B. Polay/courtesy of HBO, Right; by Jose Arcos Aguilar/REX/Shutterstock.
Highgarden, a.k.a. Castillo de Almodóvar del Río, Spain.
Left; courtesy of HBO, Right; from siete_vidas/REX/Shutterstock.
The Dornish Water Gardens, a.k.a. Seville’s Alcazar Palace, Spain.
Left; by Brian Tan, Right; by Macall B. Polay/courtesy of HBO.
Braavos, a.k.a. Girona, Spain.
Left; by Macall B. Polay/courtesy of HBO, Right; from 135pixels/REX/Shutterstock.
King’s Landing, a.k.a. Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Left; courtesy of HBO, Right; by Paul Shio.
King’s Landing, a.k.a. Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Left; courtesy of HBO, Right; by Paul Shio.
Great Pit of Daznak, a.k.a. Seville, Spain.
Left; by Botond Horvath/REX/Shutterstock, Right; by Nick Wall/Courtesy of HBO.
Astapor, a.k.a. Ait Benhaddou, Souss-Massa-Drâa, Morocco.
Left; from imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock, Right; courtesy of HBO.
