Please enjoy Arya and Brienne training for their 'Game of Thrones' fight like badasses
It was one of the highlights of an uneven season 7: Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) returning to Winterfell and showcasing her mad sword skills by sparring with Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie).
But it didn't go down the way you think. For one thing, that wasn't Maisie doing an incredible acrobatic leap from her back, even though CGI fooled you into thinking it was.
Now that HBO's behind-the-scenes video series The Game Revealed has reached Season 7 episode 4, we have this breakdown of the Brienne-Arya choreography -- which is well worth a watch.
There's a lot to love here in a short clip, from the tumbling stunt double to the fact that Maisie insisted on using her sword left-handed, just as Arya did in the books.
But the highlight has to be watching these two great actors training their moves over and over with giant grins on their faces -- especially when Maisie brings out the dagger that ends the scene.
It would have been so easy for this fight to come across as laughable, but the pair's joy and utter commitment to the choreography is what made a difficult scene into a classic.
Topics Game Of Thrones
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
