Natalie Dormer graces the December cover of Women’s Health magazine (US and UK editions) providing plenty of beautiful new photos and new info for us via these bonus quotes. The actress covers a variety of subjects in her interview, from her own fitness regimen to her work in Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2. She even discusses which GoT character she’d bring with her into the Games, and has a revealing tease about Game of Thrones season 6.
The Hunger Games series is finishing up with this latest movie in which Dormer plays propo director Cressida.
“It’s going to be epic and I don’t use that word lightly,” the actress tells Women’s Health.
She explains, “We saw a little bit in Mocking Jay Part I, a little bit of the “real world” out of the arena. In Mocking Jay Part II, you see a whole lot more. You see the Capital. It’s effectively—it’s a war movie. I’m part of Star Squad that goes into the capital in the final push to overthrow Snow. We filmed at some amazing sets, exteriors in Berlin and Paris. I’m really excited to see this movie on a large screen—the spectacle of it—because even though there is CGI and really impressive effects, a lot we did [ourselves] as well. A lot is real practical stuff. So it’s really great. I’m really excited.”
And how would she do in the Games? Dormer says, “I’d die basically if I was in the arena. I think the cannon would go.” But she notes, “Oh god, what would I need to have with me. Brienne of Tarth. Can I cross-pollinate? If I could take Gwendoline Christie [from Game of Thrones] into the arena with me, I will probably be fine.”
On her own health and fitness preferences, Dormer says she’s “massively a fan of juicing” and that she loves to exercise. “I like to run a lot. I find running quite therapeutic—I find its good for my mind, for my body. I feel that way about yoga as well. I’ve been practicing yoga now since I was in my early 20s. As long as I got my yoga mat and my trainers [sneakers] with me, I’m pretty sorted wherever I shoot or travel in the world.”
Dormer has some very interesting comments about Game of Thrones. The actress says, “Margaery is a savvy chick and she’s trying to find an angle—she’s trying to find a way to get out of that cell so it’s pretty amusing and ingenious the route she decides to take.”
While the comment itself is vague, when paired with what we already know of season 6 filming, it’s quite revealing. Her remarks seem to answer the question we had in a post back in early September, during Girona filming, whether Margaery was doing something as a ploy or not. (Visit this post for major spoilers on Margaery’s storyline.)
Dormer elaborates on her character to Women’s Health. “Margaery has been with me now for five years and she’s—it’s great, she’s a part of my psyche. It’s great when you’ve been part of a phenomenal show like that that keeps pushing the boundaries with its scripts and keeps you on your toes, has a familiarity to it as well, so it’s easy to go back into the skin. It’s the perfect balance really. The creators of the show, David and Dan, try really hard to take it from a different angle, explore different ideas every season. There is never any complacency. Everyone is still working as hard as they did in the first season. It’s a beauty to go back to Game of Thrones. It’s like going back to camp, it’s like going back to school. It’s all family, it’s familiar. It’s like stepping back into an old skin really.”
To read more, pick up the December issue of Women’s Health on newsstands November 24th!
Hodor! !!!!
Hodor
Natalie <3
Cersei and Margaery are always a highlight
Two characters that I believe come to life even more in the show than their book counterparts
Kings Landing will be crazy and amazing…
Shane snow,
Not terribly surprising.
Shane snow,
Good.
I wonder how much screen time Margaery will have next season. She will be imprisoned
Mockingjay is spelled together btw, I am very excited for that film so it was nice to read this interview because of that as well.
What a beauty!
Ahh im excited to see what she’s talking about since I haven’t seen those “major spoilers”
Come on April!
Is it just me or this cover looks like a parody of women’s magazines?
After seeing so many dothraki man cast news it’s great to finally see a beautiful female around here 🙂
Chinoiserie,
I do spell it together. Where’s it shown as two words is a quote from someone else spelling it that way.
Chinoiserie,
I prefer “Mocking-Jay”, as I am a proponent of the superfluous “Spider-Man hyphen”.
😀 Beautiful photos of Ms. Dormer. She also expresses herself very well. Can’t wait to see her in action next season.
JCDavis,
Actually, that would be the “light side” lol
As long as Margaery isn’t sacrificing Loras to get out, I’m all for it.
Love her! 🙂 And unsurprisingly, Margaery is …ing it and she’s savvy. She’s her grandma, when young, gathering experience. She’ll be Daenerys’ best friend at some point!
Cersei is strengthening her enemies’ hatred, hopefully she’ll be gone back to CR sooner rather than later. Cersei in KL is far beyond the sell-by date for me.
smh it was Cersei who had the
I suppose it is how one considers the “side”. For me, THAT side is a dark one. I love spirituality and despise religion.
Kay,
Daeny and Margaery could be more than friends. 😀 Personally I’m all for it. Some steamy sex scene on the IT with dragons beside them.
Screw Jon and other guys. Daeny and Margaery for the IT.
Yeah same here, I wouldn’t mind seeing KL shaken up a bit. We were teased with Stannis siege but I am over the Lannisters holding it, would like to see them in their native habitat of CR
But what does Margaery have in Winter? She’s going to pull something to get herself out of her mess.
That written, it’s going to be more than just doing what Cersei did. For one thing, what Cersei did was not very ingenious: and that’s a big reason why it blew up in her face. Margaery needs to add some clever twist to this that Cersei failed to do.
O_O
Kay,
Cersei needs to forever be on the throne…
TeamMotherofMadness4EVA
I’d love it if every woman at the local gym I go to would wear stilettos while they workout, just like dormer in the pic
What is she doing wearing trainers [sneakers] for yoga?
Paul,
Did you not read the entire quote?She loves running and yoga, hence the sneakers mention.
It’s her smirk. She has the pose, the helpful “Hot & Confident” on her skirt, but the smirk looks like an asterisk: “yeah, i don’t mean this.”
Why not? 😀
Fine, as long as she stays offscreen while doing so. 😉
(I’ll be honest: I was so bored of her in Season 5 – I can’t stand yet another season of her being mind-bogglingly stupid.)
Love Natalie Dormer. She oozes intelligence–there’s a reason she always gets typecast as whipsmart characters–and she seems supremely comfortable in her skin.
Margaery in Season 6:
Kay,
Don’t worry
Shes gonna go down in glory, all while taking Kings Landing and the Tyrells with her.
Her wrath will destroy everything, lol….
Gayle,
I don´t see her sacrificing Loras but I do think they will be both gone at the end, along with their fool of a father…Lady Olenna will have to witness the down fall of her house in the same way Master Aemon had to
Wimsey,
margaery already got out of the mess by her family and randyll tarly in the books. by the end of ADWD, it cersei who’s pretending to be a fake zealot not margaery. its seriously annoying to me that they’re giving cersei’s arc to margaery. D&D’s boner for natalie dormer it out of control
Maybe a dancer in Vaes Dothrak?
aurane waters,
lol
AShadowWithTheFaceOfHodor,
Indeed. Pathetic, isn’t it.
I do yoga and run as well… it is strange I don’t look that way
Clearly, we’re not completely sure as to what her true “ingenious” solution really is, so I frankly don’t see the reason for an apoplectic reaction centered around proverbial erections.
🙂 ++ Gravediggers unite!
Kay,
Valar Morghulis to Jon and others. Well Jon sort of a fulfilled it already. 😀
Long live the Queens.
This made me laugh – it has to be the most diplomatic way of saying “chill out” I’ve read in a long time. It’s true, as well – we don’t know what her ultimate plan is going to be, so no need to get overly upset. If Marge does take a paragraph from Cersei’s playbook and improve upon it so that it works to get her and Loras free, that would be a very interesting process to watch.
FreeParking,
Did they film scenes for Oldtown?
Akash Singh,
um excuse you, what even is the point of these comment sections if not to create drama?
FreeParking,
I love it that u guys across the Atlantic speak the same language as us Brits but come on sneakers?????? They r called trainers my friends lol
Chilli,
Yes, in Girona.
No, trainers are hired people who help you work out or show you how to better yourself in a sport or other endeavors. Sneakers are shoes. 😛
Moles town bastard,
Hmmm, don’t know about that. When I see the word “trainers” in your context it reminds me of those pull up diapers we used to potty train the kiddies. 😀
Margaery is far from out of her mess in the books. And you can bet that Cersei is going to do her utmost to make it very difficult for Margaery to get out of the mess in which Cersei got Margaery.
So, what remains to be seen is what Margaery is going to wind up doing after Cersei sabotages Margaery’s trial: and you know that Cersei will manage to do that.
I think that it will take death for Cersei to stop being mind-bogglingly stupid! (And even then, she’ll still believe that she’s actually smarter than everyone else….)
So you think they will go Oldtown-Horn Hill-Oldtown in the show? I know Sam goes to Oldtown first in the books, but it seems so much more simple if he just stops by Horn Hill in the show. If he ends in Oldtown in the show why not make Horn Hill a pit stop on the way? We have no evidence that he is taking a boat in the show, might be just taking a land approach to the journey. And I reiterate: what use does Gilly have in Oldtown?
FreeParking,
Gilly is a very secondary character, so I would not get too caught up in worrying about what she does. Sam himself is a lesser protagonist: he will make some small contribution to the story, I am sure, but probably not a huge one.
JCDavis,
Way to hold it down.
Hodor’s Bastard,
Will we see a
this season??? So stoked to get back to the Riverlands
Huh… So you think we’ll spend half a season not seeing Sam and Gilly at all? Or seeing them travel and… nothing else, considering the relevant story was already adapted in AFFC. I think that’s much less likely than the alternative.
Gilly isn’t really a main character (though she is part of the main cast). She’ll interact with Sam until they decide that she and her baby will be safer at Horn Hill, and then Sam will take them there. That simple. She doesn’t have to “do” anything else. What did she “do” in the past few seasons? She’s not a main character; her actions don’t drive the plot.
Luka Nieto,
Did they set out for eastwatch in the show? I can’t recall. I think it would be interesting to see them travel some. I don’t think it will be compelling or believable to have them just “arrive” in oldtown/horn hill/wherever- yet I also don’t see how believable either a jetpack scenario or spending several “on the road” scenes would be for them. The kingsroad would be a tough trip for Sam, a wildling halfwit (I love Gilly, really), and a perpetual infant.
Wimsey,
I have a feeling Sam will make a very prominent contribution to the endgame. Not sure exactly what or how, but he has been Jon’s sidekick since Thrones, he’s survived this long, and has now made his way to the Citadel for a reason. Plus- he may be the one to convince his asshole father to stop being an asshole and lead an army north.
Sam the Slayer!
That’s ok, I’ll go ‘train’ in my trainers. You slip on your sneakers and sneak… ?
Anyway, I now have a mental image of Marg going bananas in her cell because she can’t go out for a run and clear her head. I feel jailed when I can’t go run…
What are you even talking about? Margaery is still facing trial. She’s not out of trouble. In fact, she’s only out of jail until her trial —she’s on bail, since Tarly swore to the High Sparrow he would bring her to trial when the time came.
They aren’t giving her Cersei’s arc. Where could you have possibily gotten that from? Cersei already faked repentance in season five —We saw it happen; she hasn’t been robbed of anything! And, by all acounts, this is what Marg will do:
Also, if D&D have a “boner” for Natalie Dormer, it certainly doesn’t show in their scripts. The Tyrells always surface at the beginning of each season since season two, and there’s usually promise of things to come, but then they have little to no presence in the climactic episodes. Season five was no exception. Margaery and Olenna were completely absent after episode seven —yet again, there was not a single Tyrell to be seen in the last three episodes. Their absence was even more pronounced in season four: Margaery’s last appearance was barely past the halfway point, and her grandmother abandoned the city and hence the season way before that. I’m not saying this as a big criticism of the show, as the Tyrells aren’t central, main characters —Narratively, they’re there for Cersei’s sake. But that’s exactly my point: if you’re arguing that D&D’s supposed infatuation with Dormer has tipped the balance in favor of giving her unwarranted screentime, you’re simply wrong.
Sure, Gilly isn’t a main character, but she is played by an actress who is a member of the cast as you pointed out. That means she needs scenes. Since their relationship from AFFC was already adapted, again as you point out, my question is how much more is there to mine from that relationship? Of course a lot of this depends on how things shake down in TWOW, which we don’t know and the Oldtown stuff is one of the bigger mysteries there.
I think what will happen in the show is we may get a scene or two of Sam and Gilly traveling on the road. Mid-season we will see them stop at Horn Hill for a few episodes. Then we will see Sam end up in Oldtown at the end of the season and plant a few seeds for whatever he will do next season. I don’t think we will see a lot of Sam this season. Someone said that this season’s theme is that people will be going back. That is true of Sam. He will be going home, even if only temporarily.
FreeParking,
So basically you think they’ll only catch up with AFFC plus TWOW’s presumed “taking Gilly to Horn Hill” part.
I never really thought that Sam would take Gilly to Horn Hill in the books but yes.
Actually literally being a religious fanatic who is using ‘but we’re on the people’s side!’ to get power? Brrr! That’s a funny kind of light…
And conversely, the US term ‘walker’ for a Zimmer frame originally made me think of a baby walker, and now, an animated corpse 😛
Thronetender,
Thanks, I try! 🙂
I’m really intrigued for Margaery’s arc. I find her to be one of the most infinitely intricate characters in the series.
We learnt about it in his last chapter, I think it was. Maybe he even mentioned it to Jon back at Castle Black. Unless you think he’ll reconsider, that is. But that’s certainly Sam’s plan in the books, as of the last time we saw him: to take Gilly and the baby to his family at Horn Hill and claim that he had fathered this bastard son with Gilly, so they must take care of Gilly and the baby.
I doubt that Sam will do that. I would bet that it will be Daeny who makes them.
Some people think that Sam will learn the truth of what ended the first Humanity vs. White Walker war. Personally, I think that to be a far more probable outcome, although it will not be plainly spelled out. Instead, it could be that he will find written accounts of the different Azor Ahai stories and work out the truth that the fairy tales tried to hide.
It will be nearly opposite. Sam will start at Oldtown, and do his Winter stuff. There is no point in the journey: all of the important story elements from that were done last year.
Wimsey,
I agree, Sam will be a lynchpin of sorts in discovering the information necessary to end the coming war. Be it history, horns, hereditory prophecy, magic candles- perhaps finding the connection between any or all of these elements- I think his proximity to so many central characters and plot points guarantees his important role in the future.
Also- while Dany may be the one to lead (force?) Tarly into action- I think it will be Sam’s account of the danger up north that will ultimately turn him. Sure, I expect the old man to initially scoff at the story, but I think Sam will plant the seed in his coming visit to Horn hill.
Looking ahead to spring- baby Sam may be the one to inherent horn hill after Sam becomes a master and his brother dies in battle….. (The small folk will be calling it newborn hill)
Hopefully.