How ‘Severance’ Broke Gwendoline Christie’s Post-‘Game of Thrones’ No-Combat Policy

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Severance, Season 2 Episode 10, “Cold Harbor.”]

Severance‘s Season 2 finale served up one knock-down drag-out fight as Mammalians Nurturable department head Lorne (Gwendoline Christie) went toe-to-toe with Lumon higher-up Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson).

While Christie is no stranger to onscreen fighting after spending several seasons playing Brienne of Tarth on HBO’s former hit Game of Thrones, it was something she’d initially avoided after her run as a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. “I hadn’t done any combat since Game of Thrones,” Christie points out to TV Insider, adding, “That had been a conscious decision that it wasn’t something I wanted to do anymore.”

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So, what changed her mind? “When Ben Stiller says there’s a fight scene in Severance, and it is as outlandish, bizarre, and a strange psychic explosion as this one was, I found it irresistible,” Christie remarks. Ultimately, the performer who is also known for her roles in projects like Wednesday and The Sandman, reveals, “I was delighted to go back into a more serious form of training that would enable me to carry out the fight.”

When it was time to choreograph and rehearse the brutal onscreen fight, Christie credits her scene partner Darri, saying, “I’ve really admired his work for a long time, and he was brilliant to work with and our excellent stunt team.” And despite years between her run on Thrones and Severance, Christie didn’t break her stride. “I found that it came back to me immediately and I found I knew what I was doing,” she says of shooting the sequence.

To get ready for the fight, Christie worked with a trainer with whom she did “two-hour sessions to give me the stamina to be able to carry that out. Because it had been… a number of years since I’d done anything like this.” Ultimately, Christie tapped into the emotion behind Lorne’s behavior, citing, “This is an ultimate emotional explosion and this is a transformation of self and a real change from one state as a company player under duress [who] is carrying out acts that they increasingly don’t believe in, to becoming a primitive, angry, and violent force.”

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As fans saw in the episode, Lorne was going to have to sacrifice her goat, Emile, until Mark (Adam Scott) disrupted the apparent ritual, distracting Mr. Drummond. When Drummond nearly suffocated Mark to death, Lorne held a nail gun to his head pulling the fight in her direction. Together, Lorne and Mark are able to turn the tables on Drummond and as a result, Emile is freed to live, for which Lorne is grateful.

While we may not have any additional answers about why the goat was going to be sacrificed and where it might lead next, the promise of a third season gives us hope we’ll dig deeper into Lorne’s love of the goats. But what did you think of Christie’s onscreen fight? Did it remind you of her Game of Thrones onscreen combat? Sound off in the comments section, below.

Severance, Seasons 1-2, Streaming now, Apple TV+

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