Game of Thrones star Hannah Waddingham has revealed that making the show left her with a phobia she didn’t have beforehand.
Waddingham played Septa Unella in eight episodes of the hit HBO series between 2015 and 2016, famously walking Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) naked through the streets of King’s Landing in one scene, yelling “Shame!” at regular intervals.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Waterboarding scene from Game of Thrones.
Stream the world’s best reality, entertainment and true-crime shows free on 7plus 
During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Waddingham recalled the “horrific” experience of filming another of the show’s famous scenes, saying that the day of filming left her traumatised.
“Thrones gave something I wasn’t expecting from it, and that was chronic claustrophobia,” the 49-year-old actress and singer told the talk show host.
The actress spent 10 hours on set being waterboarded in a scene where she is tortured by Cersei as punishment for the above mentioned walk of shame.
There was no body double and no CGI — it was Waddingham having glass after glass of liquid poured on her face as she was strapped down on a table.
She said she had to keep reminding herself during the filming that the directors weren’t going to let her die.
“I’m strapped to a table with all these leather straps,” she told Colbert.
“I couldn’t lift up my head because it would be too obvious that it was loose.
“I had grape juice all in my hair so it went purple, I couldn’t speak because (Game of Thrones character) The Mountain had his hand over my mouth while I was screaming, and I had strap marks all over me like I’d been attacked.”
And while describing it as the worst day of her life, she said it gave the scenes an authenticity they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
In a separate interview with Collider, Waddingham said the waterboarding scene was originally written as a rape scene.
But the furious audience response to an earlier scene in which Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) was raped made the writers and producers think twice.
“They changed it quite at the last minute,” she said.
“I think they possibly changed it when I was mid-air flying to Belfast because suddenly I got (told) I would need a wetsuit top.
“I thought they’d sent me the wrong bits.
“They were like, ‘Oh, it’s going a waterboarding instead’.
“And I was like, ‘But we’re not actually doing waterboarding.’
“And they were like, ‘No, no, no, we are’.”
Perhaps frustratingly for Waddingham, the 10 hours she spent being waterboarded resulted in precisely 90 seconds of screen time.
But she got on with it, summing up her attitude while filming the scene.
“Get on with it, be uncomfortable — push yourself,” she said.
Waddingham has since gone on to appear in another TV hit, starring in all three seasons of Ted Lasso.
