Exclusive: Tanzyn Crawford Discusses Tanselle Journey In ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
HBO is set to release their latest Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in the next few days. Based off the novella, The Hedge Knight, BeautifulBallad had the opportunity to catch up with one of the stars of the series, Tanzyn Crawford.
On how the creative team pitched her character, Tanselle, to her: “I don’t even remember. My initial audition, I don’t think it said anything about a love interest, but it didn’t say what the audition was for. It had a code name, but it did say Tanselle. So I just looked it up and then I found her character lore. But I don’t think it was ever pitched as a love interest. I honestly don’t remember. Maybe a little bit. The scene that I auditioned with definitely felt like some kind of chemistry connection, like one of the later scenes. It’s possible it could be moving towards that way or it could not be. Who knows? I didn’t want it to be just obvious, like I fawn over something. I feel like I wanted it to feel like a real relationship when you meet someone and you got to get to know before something.”
On how it felt to bring a higher level of comedy to a fantasy series like Game of Thrones: “I’ve never worked on Game of Thrones, so I didn’t know what the tone of the set was. I think it’s kind of hard to go to work and feel like every day the scenes are difficult, but this show was, for me and my character, just a fun, positive environment. There’s a couple of scenes that maybe require a little bit more emotional depth, but most of the time it was just like a joyous day and beautiful weather. It felt like exactly how it feels on screen. It just felt like that kind of energy of fun and lighthearted rather than very serious and all this conflict.”
On the her pivotal scenes towards the latter half of the season: “It is such like a catalyst moment. It did have to feel very impactful. We like worked really hard on the choreography and even how it’s framed camera-wise. It’s big and it’s a turmoil, but the way that the camera moves in, I just think magnifies the impact of it. So I think it does need to be an important moment because it’s the whole catalyst, isn’t it? We took it very seriously. People were worried because they didn’t want me to get hurt. And I was like, ‘Guys, I’m so fine. Throw me on the ground. I want to be involved. I want to get down and dirty with this stuff.’ So that was really important to me that I could participate.”
On how she prepared for her role in terms of being faithful to how she’s portrayed in the source material while also imbuing her with your own interpretation: “I think I was in quite a good position character-wise, because I think there’s maybe two or three sentences describing what she looks like and maybe one on her personality. So I did feel like I could gauge from the script and decide which direction I wanted to take the character. And then of course, Ira [Parker] gave me some input and George [Martin] gave me a little bit of input. I wanted to honor what is written, but I also think that I wanted to bring my own aspects and twists on the character and I didn’t want to just pick exactly from those comic book things and just create that because I think that’s a version that’s been done and I just wanted to do my version and my interpretation of it and make her uniquely me.”
On how she prepped for her scenes involving playing the puppeteer to a larger audience: “I was picturing something much smaller. And so getting there and seeing the stage and seeing how many people were actually going to be sitting there watching above and beyond the crew, was really intimidating. And I did go to acting school and I didn’t study a lot of theater, but we did some theater. So I tried to hone those skills and get my stage presence going. But I also feel like that adds to the character. She is a storyteller and she’s on stage, but I imagine that she’s maybe not always on stage and it’s not her most comfortable position. Maybe she likes the aspect of the painting and the creativity behind the scenes more than being on stage. I kind of just use the nervousness and try to like bundle it into a part of her personality.”
On what of the puppetry practical versus visual: “I think it was all practical. The dragon was really there. Everything was really there. Everything was on stage. The human sized puppets were all real people carrying the puppets around. I was really up there with my beautiful costumes and my dresses. I think the only thing that was visual effects was maybe the fire. And I was like, ‘Guys, I can be in the fire. Do the fire at me.’ And everyone was like, ‘No, we can’t do that.’ I think that might have been the only thing, but everything else was for real, getting the powder in the fire, I really did that. That was all part of it. It was really cool. It was very immersive.”
On working with the dragon puppet: “Honestly, thank God I wasn’t in it because it looked heavy and cumbersome. I think there was someone was doing the head, two or three people in the body, and a person had each wing. So it was like a lot going on. We had choreography of it moving around and I was trying to avoid it. But it was quite the sight to behold, but a good amount of time was spent trying to choreograph where that massive puppet was on the stage.”
On whether George R. R. Martin gave her some advice about the character that wasn’t on the page: “Initially the first thing he said to me was that I was exactly what he pitched as Tanselle, which was like a huge little confidence boost going in, but he just gave me kind of like general information about how small folk carry themselves and how he thinks Tanselle would carry herself. We did speak a little bit about how he thinks that maybe she’s not the most natural on stage and she did prefer the behind the scenes stuff. We talked about that. He said to me that he thought that she was quite self-assured, even though she maybe presents as like small, it wasn’t a lack of confidence. It was just a smaller personality that is still self-assured. That’s what we talked about really.”
On preparing for Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed series: “I’m definitely getting into the lore and I’m very excited by what I’ve read so far. I know people are going to really enjoy it and I can’t wait to get started with that one.”
On who she would describe her character in one word: “I would say like an observer. Observer, that would be her. That’s not really an adjective, but I just think that’s what she is.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on HBO on January 18.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Photo Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO