‘Game Of Thrones’ Stars React To Melisandre Season 6 Premiere Reveal

“Game of Thrones” revealed a new side of
Melisandre in Sunday’s Season 6 premiere. 

(Spoiler alert! This
story contains major plot details from the “Game of Thrones” Season 6
premiere, “The Red Woman.”) 

Although viewers didn’t find out anything about the late Jon
Snow (other than he is still dead), they did learn something new about
Melisandre (Carice van Houten) in the show’s final scene of the night. While experiencing a major crisis of faith following a number of events, including the failure of Stannis Baratheon and his armies, and Jon Snow’s murder, Melisandre took off her necklace, revealing in the final moments of “The Red Woman” that she is an elderly priestess who has been in disguise throughout seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Melisandre has been a polarizing character over the run of
the show for some of the many, many horrible things she’s done to try and seat
(the now late) Stannis Baratheon on the Iron Throne (beginning with burning
people on the beach in her Season 2 introduction), but watching her disrobe and
look at what is presumably her real face in a foggy mirror before she crawled
into bed was heartbreaking.

Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos Seaworth, told Access Hollywood
about how he reacted to the scene, when Access Hollywood asked him about the
moments he thought were most shocking from the Season 6 premiere.

READ: ‘Game Of Thrones’: Sophie Turner On Sansa’s Season 6 Premiere Rescue

“It was initially shocking. You know what I thought was
my favorite bit, and I said it to David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss, the show’s
executive producers, after the Season 6 Hollywood premiere], was at that moment
when the reveal comes and you kind of go, ‘Oh my God,’ it puts things into
context with Melisandre,” Liam told Access. “It doesn’t explain or blah,
blah, blah. … It’s confirmed like, she’s a witch, but there was such a touch of
humanity. When [the scene went] on and she went to the bed and got into the bed
and covered herself up… it was like a really striking moment in this weird
madness of humanity.”

“It was very sad. It was a human moment,” he continued. “She
just covers up and cuddled in.” 

Other cast members were also affected by the Melisandre
scene. 

Hannah Murray, who portrays Wildling Gilly, said it
helped answer questions about the character.

READ: Carice Van Houten Talked Melisandre’s Age In 2012 Pre-Season 2 Interview 

“It was amazing, absolutely amazing,” she said.
“It really makes you see what she’s capable of. I think there’s always
been this kind of question with her of like, is she for real? This kind of idea
of having sort of magical powers or not, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, you really
are magic.'”

John Bradley, who plays Samwell Tarly, said that the scene showed
new depths to the Melisandre character. 

“And what I like about that, and seeing her like that
is you know then that her sexuality over the course of the last few seasons,
[which] we’ve seen her use as such a tool — that’s all very deliberate,”
John said. “She presents herself in this way as this beautiful woman
because she knows the effect that that can have on people. She knows the effect
that that has on Stannis, and that can make men do unadvisable things. So the
fact that she did that and she uses that power in that way to have this influence
on people — that puts her into context as somebody who really does know what
she’s doing.”

“Game of Thrones” Season 6 continues Sunday nights
at 9 PM ET/PT on HBO.

— Jolie Lash