Natalie Dormer Knows How Game of Thrones Ends

Hey, what's up, guys? We're hanging out in the Young Hollywood Studio with Ed Skrein, Natalie Dormer, and Anthony Byrne. How's it going, guys?

Hi.

Great to be here.

Yeah. We want to say first of all, congrats on an amazing film. I loved it.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

You said you've been special Oscar mails. But I just want to ask you a few questions. Did you know Miss Kavana?

We were neighbors. She was always kind to me.

So you didn't hear anything? I know that you wonderfully acted in it. You wonderfully acted in it. You directed it. I know you two co-wrote it. Where did this idea come from? Where did you get this story idea?

Well, we've always loved watching uh, great thrillers. And we were like, we love watching psychological thrillers and we're like where are the contemporary thrillers that are set in our city and make our city look how we know and love our city. And uh, we wanted you know, we wanted to uh, really run with a three-dimensional, fleshed out, imperfect, you know, female protagonist and give her a really interesting story.

Tell me about the research you guys both did to play your characters. What do you research did you do to play a bad guy?

Yeah.

Who'd you hang out with? What'd you do?

Some other movies. I did a lot of research and I thought what was interesting about the the characters and the dynamic relationship between Sophia and Mark was that traditionally we see the characters, um, the unempowered, um, characters, the um, support, secondary characters that such as Mark as female characters usually. We're used to that. But I

The love interest.

The love interest. But I've grown up and the most bad-ass people I've known are women, you know? And still the most bad-ass people I'm surrounded by are women and the bad-ass men that I know are just propped up by bad-ass women. Yeah. So, for,

Yeah, so, for, for, for a film to represent that and to to to have a character like Sophia who's so strong and you know, Nat's a force of nature in real life. You can feel it when she walks in the room and you can see it on screen. You know, that is an honor to be second fiddle to that force of nature, to that tidal wave. You know what I mean? So, um,

Checks in the post. There you go. Yeah. Thanks very much. That's a great answer, right?

It was our dream when Ed came on board. Um, Anthony and I had done a lot of research. A place called the Royal National Institute of Blind People in London, we talked to a lot of partially sighted and blind people. Um, we tried to show as much respect and research as we could there. But ultimately what we wanted to make, you know, was a thriller. It's a genre movie. And stylistically, um, and in the cut. That's what Anthony was aiming for. It's a thrill ride. But, um, there's beautiful themes of family, um, identity, redemption, forgiveness of other people and yourself. In like real life, people aren't just good or all bad. There's a grayness in there and uh, that's what we tried to do. We tried to make the characters real.

And now, obviously, you guys are each other's better half. Did you guys, though, did you meet originally on Game of Thrones and then you're like, hey, come join us on this awesome movie. Or how did that get together?

We met for like 20 20 minutes in a in a makeup trailer in Wasersack which is in the middle of the desert in.

Yeah, we did.

In Morocco, um, which was pleasant, but very brief. And and then and then we met, um, again after that coming back from Comic Con, right? I'd actually seen Ed the day before, uh, which I don't know if I'd told you. There's some dead It's getting pretty in San Diego. I was like in San Diego, Comic Con, I was like Ed's here. Oh I need to go talk to him. But, um, I missed the opportunity. He was gone. And then we were back in LA for a few days and then we flew out of LA and we got into, um, I'm going to say it first class. And we were the only three people in first class. And it was almost like inception where we'd bought out the plane. And you know, in order to to seduce Ed. And incept him on the plane back and, um, we started talking, but we didn't talk about the film.

Well like this is the universe, man. Because we're cooler than that. So we were like, don't talk about the film. Don't talk about the film. Don't pitch the film. Don't pitch the film. Just get to know each other. And then we mentioned on the way to the baggage when we're picking up the bags. And now now it'll make sense. Slow burn. It's like you

And when he was asleep when he was asleep on the plane, I went over and I kept saying, In darkness. You're going to get a script.

Okay. So I thought I was like, okay, they must have just like casually met on on Game of Thrones and then I was going to ask you, probably obviously really know who's going to be on the Iron Throne.

I do know. And you know.

I do know. I ain't got a clue. I hope it's one of the dragons. That would be awesome.

Nice. Nice cool. Yes. That would be awesome. Is that a metaphor?

No. I haven't got a clue.

You don't know anything about Targaryens, do you, Ed?

No.