Jessica Henwick, who plays Nymeria Sand in the HBO hit, met a sticky end in the latest instalment of season seven at the hands of bloodthirsty pirate Euron Greyjoy (played by Pilou Asbaek).
As Game of Thrones fans will remember, Nymeria gallantly fought the King of the Ironborns after he ambushed the ship she was on before going on a killing spree.
In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk at London Film and Comic Con today, the 24-year-old British actress spoke candidly about departing from Game of Thrones.
Jessica said: “I feel like I’m mourning the character. I played her for three seasons which is about four years in real time. It was such an honour to be part of such a big show. I think I’m in shock.”
The star from Surrey said that she knew about her character’s demise, explaining: “Yes, I knew it was coming purely because scheduling-wise it didn’t look like it was going to be possible to continue.
“I’m just glad that HBO and Marvel agreed to film both shows at the same time. It was really, really difficult trying to work those schedules around each other.
“It got to the stage where I was flying in for two days to Belfast to go train and then I’d fly back to New York to go back in for a costume fitting and it was just like that for months, really bitty.”
Nymeria’s death happened during the climax of episode two Stormborn and proved to be a high-octane action sequence but the scene proved tough to film.
She revealed: “It was very brutal. We were doing night shoots for a week for that ship scene. They built two ships and they had a wave machine which was washing us across the deck. They had embers that they were blowing down onto our heads. It was a very hard scene to film
“But I think it paid off in the end. If you watch it, it looks magnificent.”
So did she get injured while working on such a physically-demanding scene? Jessica said that she emerged unscathed from the scene but some of her co-stars were less fortunate.
“One of the stunt doubles’ wigs caught fire. But no, I was lucky. Keisha [Castle-Hughes] who plays my older sister, her head got burnt from the embers’ ash,” she said.
Since leaving Game of Thrones Jessica has been busy on a number of projects including Marvel’s The Defenders, Iron Fist and has a film coming out under the working title of Underwater.
For more information about the London Film and Comic Con visit www.londonfilmandcomiccon.com
Game of Thrones continues on HBO this Sunday in the US and will be simulcast on Sky Atlantic on Monday at 2am. Catch up on seasons one to seven on NOW TV.
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