Hannah Waddingham is recalling a particularly tough day at the office.
TheGame of Thronesactress recently revealed that filming her most harrowing scene, in which her character, Unella, was waterboarded in season 6, was not her favorite day on the job.
Instead, Waddingham said that deviation was made last-minute and that it required her to wear a wetsuit top.
“I thought they’d sent me the wrong bits and sure enough, when I got there, I was then put in a wetsuit top,” Waddingham, 46, said. “I was like, ‘Because?’ And they went, ‘Oh, it’s waterboarding instead.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, well, we’re not actually doing waterboarding.’ [And they said], ‘No, no, no - we are.’ And there I was, strapped to a wooden table with proper big straps for 10 hours. And definitely, other than childbirth, it was the worst day of my life.”
HBO did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
The actress then recalled how her former costarLena Headeywas “uncomfortable pouring liquid” onto her face over a long period of time. Waddingham, for her part, remembered being “beside myself.”
“In those moments you have to think, do you serve the piece and get on with it or do you chicken out and go, ‘No, this isn’t what I signed up for, blah, blah, blah?'” Waddingham said.
HBO
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As she returned to her hotel after the shoot, Waddingham ran into costar Eugene Simon (a.k.a. Lancel Lannister) who had asked her what had happened. She recalled having “no voice at all to barely whisper” and “bruises already coming up” as she explained to Simon, 28, that she had been waterboarded for 10 hours.
“He went, ‘Mate, I’ve just been crawling through s— for four days on my elbows,'” she recalled. “So we were like, ‘See? You haven’t been inGame of Thronesunless you’ve been really, really, battered around.'”
After the episode aired in 2016, Headey, 47, toldEntertainment WeeklythatGame of Throneswent with “the tame version.” She added, “It’s pretty bad still though. I’d take being exploded in the Sept over that any day.”
Hannah Waddingham.Darren Bell/Getty
Waddingham played Unella, a Septa of the Faith of the Seven, during the show’s fifth and sixth seasons. After her time on the acclaimed HBO series, she has landed multiple roles on shows, such asSex EducationandKrypton, and films, includingThe Hustle.
source: people.com
