Game of Thrones star Hannah Waddingham reveals 'horrific' scene gave her 'chronic' condition

Game of Thrones star Hannah Waddingham has revealed that filming a "horrific" scene during the HBO drama has left her with a "chronic" health condition.

Waddingham played the role of nun, Septa Unella, with some of her most famous scenes including forcing Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) to walk through the streets of King's Landing whilst she shouted, "shame".

The actor who has since starred in Ted Lasso and Sex Education has revealed in a new interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the emotional impact one particular scene has had on her, here's everything you need to know.

What has Hannah Waddingham said about Game of Thrones?

Waddingham who played the role of Septa Unella on Game of Thrones has opened up about filming a "horrific" scene that has left her with a "chronic" condition. Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the 49-year-old actor explained: "Thrones gave me something I wasn’t expecting from it, and that is chronic claustrophobia."

She continued: "'Cause I had 10 hours... I mean I’ve talked about it since with David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the two exec producers on it. I was like, good job it’s for them, because it was horrific. 10 hours of being actually waterboarded. Like, actually waterboarded."

Late Show host Stephen Colbert replied startled saying: "What? Come on." Waddingham said: "No because Thrones is such a… the reason why I don’t believe it’s touched yet in terms of the cinematography of it for a series, it’s just a different level. But with that comes actual waterboarding."

She went onto describe the process and what happened during the scene. She explained: "So I’m strapped to a table with all these leather straps, and I couldn’t lift up my head because they said that’s going to be too obvious that it’s loose. I was like, right, I’d quite like it to be loose.

"My hair’s already bleached to death. I had grape juice all in my hair so it went purple. I couldn’t speak because the Mountain had his hand over my mouth while I was screaming, and I had strap marks everywhere like I’d been attacked."

She added: "And the lift doors open, one of the other guys who’d been shooting something else was just like, “What has happened to you?"

Since starring in Game of Thrones, Waddingham went on to appear in Ted Lasso, Sex Education and The Fall Guy.

Sarah McCann is a Trends Writer for NationalWorld who specialises in stories around TV, Film and Health. If you liked this article you can follow Sarah on X (Twitter) here. You can also share your thoughts in the comment section below.