“Meryn Morghulis”: Ian Beattie on Meryn Trant’s brutal final moments 

Lena Headey, left, as Cersei Lannister and Ian Beattie as Ser Meryn Trant in ‘Game of Thrones.’

Warning: This article contains spoilers for season five of “Game of Thrones.”

Ian Beattie’s final days on the set of “Game of Thrones” were emotionally charged. On one hand, the Northern Irish actor was wrapping up his time as Ser Meryn Trant, one of the hit HBO series’ many villains, and on the other, his last scenes depicted the character resorting to despicable new lows.

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The audience had no trouble hating Meryn Trant, a brutish Kingsguard member, since the first season, when he killed Syrio Forel, Arya Stark’s (Maisie Williams) teacher in the art of swordplay. That cruel feat earned Trant a spot in Arya’s nightly revenge prayer in which she would recite a litany of all the people she would kill during her personal mission of vengeance. When Arya catches up to Trant, she finds him at a brothel, where he preys on young girls. Arya disguises herself to get inside his room to kill him, which she does by stabbing out his eyes – one of the most disturbing death scenes from a show that has made its mark with disturbing death scenes.

Now that he has taken his bloody “Game of Thrones” curtain call, Beattie has moved on to other productions that have a historical flavor to them. He said he wrapped up playing Roman general Varus for an upcoming History Channel project called “Barbarians Rising,” which chronicles the Roman Empire’s battles against various barbarian groups over 400 years. Next, he will play Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in “The Journey,” whch will star Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney as Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, respectively, Northern Ireland political rivals who became unlikely friends.

With “Game of Thrones” season five available starting today as a high-definition digital download, six months before the Blu-ray is released, Beattie talked with Speakeasy about the challenges of those last days on the “Game of Thrones” set and why he thinks the series is a game-changer for television. An edited excerpt follows.

You have one of the most spectacular death scenes in the history of “Game of Thrones.” How does that feel?

I have to be honest with you, I was of two minds. David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] are two pretty classy guys. They phone you to tell you “Valar Morghulis,” in this case “Meryn Morghulis,” so I have to say that the storyline the boys gave me, and the death scene, were absolutely spectacular. I cannot begin to tell you just how grateful I have been to David and Dan over the last five seasons to allow me to be part of such an incredible show, I mean, a real game-changer as far as I’m concerned when it comes to television.

The death scene, as you say, was spectacular. The scenes before it were perhaps the most challenging of my career. Unusually, we film those three days in order, so we did the scenes in episode nine first and the first bit of episode 10 then the second bit of episode 10. They were filmed in order over three days, three of the best days of my career, followed immediately afterwards by just about the worst moment of my professional career — when [director] David Nutter said, “That’s a series wrap on Ian Beattie.” (laughs) That wasn’t much fun, but I’m just so grateful to them for to have me be a part of this show and to have given me such a spectacular sendoff.

You called those scenes among the most challenging of your career. Meryn Trant was already a really bad guy, but this really, really made him out to be a bad guy. Take us inside those scenes and how you got into character and that mindset.

When David and Dan phoned me to say I was going, they did say that we’d see a real nasty side to Ser Meryn. I thought that was fine, you know, I’m going to get to kill some people. Then, of course, I got the scripts and the scenes, and I was horrified. I spent weeks on those scenes, going through them bit by bit: How could this be done? How do we sell this personal side of Ser Meryn? … Previously, you just thought he was a thug and a bully under orders from a sadistic king. You find out in season five just how truly evil he was.

I was very lucky to have David Nutter as my director. He’s just incomparable. He’s my No. 1, and he helped me very much to guide me through the maze that was what was going to be the revelation of the personal side of Ser Meryn with a result of playing it almost without emotion, save for one or two kind of key moments within the scenes, I think I hopefully brought the true nature of the evil of the man out. They were so difficult because … they cast perfectly. They couldn’t have cast four more beautiful little angels … and they were just angelic, they were just little angels, which made his defiling of these children even worse.

I can assure you that, having said that, the “Game of Thrones” set is very protected and protective, and all the girls were looked after. Their parents were there the whole time watching on the monitors. I, of course, didn’t stay in character as soon as “cut” was yelled, and I was back to happy. The way we photographed it, we did it very, very carefully so that…none of the children were even touched, which is something I was quite grateful for. “Ian Beattie Beats Child Actor” — that wouldn’t have read well in the press. But nonetheless, they were very difficult scenes. Every so often, I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom and I would burst into tears. I have three beautiful boys at home, so I know what it’s like to be a father. In my own opinion, Ser Meryn didn’t get half of what he deserved. I would have taken a week to kill him.

Maisie Williams as Arya Stark and Ian Beattie as Meryn Trant in ‘Game of Thrones.’

One of the most memorable aspects of your last scene was how gruesome =

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Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai, Mike Ayers and Michael Calia with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai, @themikeayers, @michael_calia

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