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The hilarious way Tormund pranks poor Brienne on the 'Game of Thrones' set

Some behind-the-scenes gossip

The hilarious way Tormund pranks poor Brienne on the 'Game of Thrones' set
07 September 2017

Torienne? Brimund? Neither of those really work, which is probably a good thing, since Tormund Giantsbane and Brienne of Tarth are very much not a couple of Game of Thrones.

Their relationship is more one-sided than teenage Ross and Rachel’s – but that doesn’t mean every single damn fan out there is rooting for them to make it work.

One of the funniest scenes from Season 7 was when Tormund and The Hound chatted about Brienne as they trudged further north of the Wall, on their idiotic plot to capture a wight (I will always be impressed that they somehow pulled this off).

Tormund is hardly subtle that he has a bit of a ‘thing’ for Brienne – the looks he gives her whenever they are in the same room are not quite the ‘eyes meet fleetingly across the dancefloor’ trope.

And now Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne, has revealed that those looks don’t stop when the cameras stop rolling – Kristofer Hijvo (Tormund) likes to stay in character, just to mess with her.

“He likes to continue being in character even off set,” she revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyer. “He will start chewing a sandwich wildly at me, start masticating wildly at me, really kind of making love to that sandwich as he eyeballs me. So it’s strong. Eyes like lasers pouring right in."

That was masticating by the way. Cating. Kristofer Hivju is not a sex pest.

As a classically trained actress, Christie says she rarely cracks and laughs during scenes, but Tormund never fails to break her down. His looks are “possibly the one time that I dissolve without fail,”  she said. “No one told me that this was gonna happen. In the script it simply said, ‘Tormund gives Brienne a look.’ I was not expecting the power, the magnitude, of intense sexual intention to pour out of a man’s eyes and cover me.”

Is this Game of Thrones' greatest romance (no, it is not)

There’s been a bit of debate around whether Tormund is actually still alive in the show – as we saw in the final episode of Season 7, he was at Eastwatch when the Night King’s wight dragon sent the Wall crashing down with his magical blue fire.

However, it looks very likely that both he and Beric were on a part of the Wall which remained standing, so we should be seeing him again in Season 8, whenever that makes it onto our screens – probably 2019, if we’re being realistic.

As for Brienne, with the Stark sisters back firmly on the same side, hopefully she’ll be able to go back to doing what she does best – kicking some ass. And also, with Jaime heading north – minus Cersei – is their a chance we could see their relationship begin in earnest? How’s Tormund gonna feel about that?

You can watch Gwendoline Christie’s full interview on Late Night with Seth Meyer here: