Why Gwendoline Christie's Agent Didn't Want Her To Audition For Game Of Thrones

Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) is a fan-favorite "Game of Thrones" character. Tough yet humble, fierce yet honorable, Brienne was an underdog everyone except the Hound's fans could root for. It's a part that also raised Christie's profile significantly, helping her land memorable roles in projects like the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy and "Wednesday." Joining "Game of Thrones" was a clear net positive for Christie, which is why it's odd to learn that her agent urged her against it.

"I immediately rang my agent and said, 'I want to do this,'" Christie explained at "Game of Thrones" season 3's UK launch in 2013 (via Digital Spy). "My agent said, 'What are you talking about? I'd never ever put you up for this. She's ugly, her nose is broken, her teeth are broken, and you'll need to use a sword.'"

In the show's source material, the people around her constantly trash Brienne's looks. Her appearance is a core aspect of her character and part of why she's so thick-skinned and uninterested in behaving like a typical lady. Christie herself, on the other hand, has no interest in fighting in real-life. As she told The Standard in 2018:

"It just was, in every sense of the word, incredible that that part should come along, made for me in a way that none of my friends would've identified for a second. They saw all of the fighting, the physicality, the fact that it was a character who was constantly being described as ugly. None of the people who knew me could understand why I would want to play that part. [...] I had to cut my hair, change my body, strip off my make-up. This is not the person I have presented to the world at all."

It's worth noting that "Game of Thrones" never fully committed to the notion of Brienne being as "ugly" as she's described in George R.R. Martin's original books. Instead, the "problem" with her appearance on the show has less to do with her being considered unattractive and more to do with her refusal to lean into the conventional standards a highborn lady should adhere to. In other words, Christie's Brienne is supposed to be androgynous, which is something that would make the people of Westeros look down on her.

"Game of Thrones" fans have often wondered if this was a copout, i.e. if perhaps the show would've been better off sticking to the books' description of her as a crooked-toothed, crooked-nosed woman. But it's also understandable: TV is a visual medium, and the series' creatives clearly believed that viewers would have a harder time sympathizing with Brienne if she looked the way Martin describes the character.

The series took the same approach with Tyrion Lannister, a character who's regarded as being "hideous" by folks in Westeros but who's played by the handsome Peter Dinklage. The gap between the book and show versions of Tyrion only grew wider after the Battle of Blackwater. In the books, Tyrion's injuries leave him with a large chunk of his nose missing, unlike the (frankly cool-looking) scar he gets in the series. It makes for a more aesthetically pleasant experience, sure, but it's hard not to feel like "Game of Thrones" chickened out.