The fifth season of Game of Thrones will see a lot of Dorne, ruled by Doran Martell. t2 brings you an interview with the man behind the character: Alexander Siddig. (Spoiler alert for Season Four.)

Who is Doran and how does he fit into the bigger picture?
Doran is Oberyn Martell’s brother. Oberyn arrived in King’s Landing at the beginning of Season Four and he got into a fight championing Peter Dinklage’s character, Tyrion. He made a major miscalculation at the end of that fight — he had clearly beaten his opponent, but decided to strut around and pose… and the opponent wasn’t dead, so the tides turned. I’ve obviously received the news that my brother’s dead and I’m devastated. He went to King’s Landing for me, partly because I had a crisis of confidence over the fact that I don’t walk and I didn’t want other families, other ruling elite, to see that I was incapacitated. I possibly could have figured out that he’d get into more trouble than he knew how to get out of, given the fact that he’s a bit of a hot head and he’s not the first person from my family who has come to grief in King’s Landing — so all in all there’s quite a healthy appetite for revenge.

But revenge how?
I am torn; I don’t know whether we are really capable of going to war on that scale. This is probably the biggest competition that we could face. The Lannisters are probably the wealthiest family, the ones who could marshal the most resources.It would be the longest, most protracted war of any war. I suspect we can hold our own in Dorne, but we’ve been independent and peaceful for such a long time that I hesitate and this causes a problem.

Why is Doran incapacitated?
He has gout. I mean I haven’t really looked into gout — it strikes me as something that happened to people back in the 19th century who drank too much port and ate too much Stilton — but it’s very painful I read. So he’s in enormous pain and that affects his gregariousness.

That’s his weakness, what’s his strength?
I don’t see his prevarication as a weakness; I see it as diplomacy, as a calculation. The Lannister King is very young, but the Lannisters would expect revenge immediately. It would be the most obvious thing — you’d look over the sea and there’s some ships and it’s got to be the Dornish people coming to get their own back, right? That would seem a bit obvious to me. I can’t put words in the writers’ mouths because they haven’t told me but I suspect that he’s got a very good reason for delaying.

How close was he to his brother, Oberyn? How close are the Martell family?
Very close. He adored his brother, his brother looked up to him and so his death would’ve hit Doran very hard. But he’s not like his sister-in-law, his brother’s widow [Ellaria Sand, played by Indira Kamasutra Varma]. She has just lost it. She’s in another place. She wants vengeance.

What’s Doran’s relationship with the Sand Snakes?
They are my nieces. They’re Oberyn’s daughters, so as you can imagine they’re all very well behaved, well trained!

What sort of place is Dorne?
If you can imagine that old Coleridge poem, Dorne is Xanadu. It’s the most luscious, most luxurious, amazing, beautiful place you can imagine, filled with people who seem to have no care; who are sensuous and honest. Women are equal to men and the rivers flow with milk and honey. This is the first problem that they’ve really encountered in a very long time. The Dornish are a warrior people but only out of necessity. You just don’t last more than two minutes in this world if you’re not good at combat. I have my bodyguard, Areo [Hotah], who is up for kicking all kinds of ass if I need him to!

What’s it been like joining such a show in a major role?
It’s great. It’s obviously been nerve-racking because you really don’t want to be the weakest link on GoT. It’s all very well being a character in a bad TV show that you don’t like and you’re not very good, because no one’s going to see it, so who cares? But everybody will see you play this role. So it’s a bit of a pressure to get it right but, you know, you just have to turn up, trust yourself and trust the writers and directors to tell you if you’re screwing up. I haven’t been told I’m screwing up, so I’m assuming we’re okay.

Where did you film?
There was a bit of Croatia but mainly Seville. It was just sumptuous. It’s an amazing place. I mean we’ve only seen a few places in there at the moment but it is just dripping with gorgeousness. I only wish I had longer there. All my scenes were shot in two-and-a-half weeks because they’ve got so much to do elsewhere.

Do you mind being a sedentary character? Are you jealous of your guard, kicking ass?
I think that’s probably a good dynamic. I’m the one to see if I can somehow express the same Latin passionate quality that exists in Oberyn from a chair using only a calculating brain. The trick for this character is to move between fire and water — people really shouldn’t know what he’s thinking. He won’t be seen in public, because he doesn’t want people to know that he’s crippled. So I’ve got to make sure that my word is heard but my body isn’t seen. That was why I didn’t go to Joffrey’s wedding. I sent Oberyn instead. There’s a dynamic on the show that says that relatively powerless people do quite well on GoT. Maybe they’ll test that mechanism again, or maybe it’s like with Arya [Stark] or Bran [Stark] — they all have these bodyguards. We’ll see.

Had you watched the show before you were cast?
No, I had to look at the shows. I had to figure out who Oberyn was! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I thought it was good and well-written but it got better and better as the show went on. It’s allegorical in a way, I think that’s really cool. The real world is more like GoT than we think. I’d watch an episode, then watch the news and I’d notice that people are taking centre stage much like the different families in GoT.

What one set that you’ve worked on would you like to show to a friend?
It would have to be the Palace at Alcazar in Seville; it’s just so beautiful. It’s a big tourist attraction and they closed it down for GoT. It’s astonishing, that place. The locations in general are phenomenal. When you add the locations to the really interesting actors they seem to choose and the amazing costuming, you’re in the zone.

Which are the scenes you most enjoyed doing?
I quite like the big old ensemble scenes, the ones that take two days to shoot. They are a lot of work, very intricate, with big meltdowns but all interpersonal stuff; not so much action just lots of dynamics happening all around. There’s a couple of those in the next season, which I really enjoyed.

Doran’s not like his sister-in-law, his brother’s widow [Ellaria Sand, played by Indira Varma]. She has just lost it. She’s in another place. She wants vengeance — ALEXANDER SIDDIG

Ellaria Sand has come home. She’s hot tempered. She wants revenge. I’m there with the Prince, she returns and bang, she wants to avenge the death of her lover, the Prince’s brother — DE OBIA OPAREI

The real world is more like GoT than we think.... Do you agree? Tell t2@abp.in

 

 

 

If Doran Martell is the brain, his bodyguard, Areo Hotah, is his right hand, left hand and legs. t2 brings you a chat with De Obia Oparei, who plays Areo and kicks ass for Doran.

What is Areo’s backstory?
He was sent to a monastery as a small boy and he was raised by monks. Those monks branded him, gave him his code of honour: to serve, protect and obey. Within that monastery, he became the Areo Hotah that we see now. He’s from the Free City of Norvos and he was sent to Dorne to look after Prince Doran’s wife [Lady Mellario]. Then he ended up looking after him.

Set the scene in Dorne as we begin Season Five…
So, Oberyn’s dead. Ellaria Sand has come home. She’s hot tempered. She wants revenge. I’m there with the Prince, she returns and bang, she wants to avenge the death of her lover, the Prince’s brother. We meet Areo and it sets off from there.

What was Areo’s relationship with Oberyn?
Areo’s relationship with Oberyn would have been, because he looks after his brother, he would have been just as protective of Oberyn.

What’s Areo like as a man?
Of course he’s a tough fighter but he’s not just the guard for a crippled prince: I think Areo is in many ways the essence of Dorne. He lives by a code which is, as I said, ‘Serve, obey, protect.’ That’s his motto, what he has emblazoned on his chest. He makes sure that the Prince’s word is kept in Dorne.

The man who killed Oberyn is The Mountain — enormous and forbidding. How do Areo and the Dornish plan on seeking vengeance?
I think that where they’re coming from, in terms of Prince Doran and Areo, I think it’s clever and more considered. I don’t think it’s about taking one person down. Areo doesn’t think like that. What happened with Oberyn is part of a legacy of things that the Lannisters have done to the House [Martell], and so Areo is thinking more about how do we infiltrate the system and how do we take that system down?

Tell us a little bit about Dorne. We’ve heard lots about it; this season we finally get to see it.
Dorne is great. It adds another really interesting colour to GoT. Dorne is a very sensual place. It has a wild abandon that King’s Landing doesn’t have. The temperament that we saw in Pedro’s [Pascal] character, Oberyn, we see that manifest in Dorne, in the incredible design and opulence of the palaces but also in characters, and in particular the character of the Sand Snakes. Each character is fantastically drawn and played, yet very, very different. They are an authority unto themselves. Along with Ellaria it all adds a real streak of wildness to Dorne.

Are they hedonists, basically?
No, the Sand Snakes are not hedonists in any way. They’re warriors. They’re fighters. Oberyn’s groomed them and trained them to be fighters — and they are women. This is a world ruled by the brother of a man who had male and female partners. Women are very empowered there in a way that they’re not in King’s Landing. In King’s Landing women acquire power by subterfuge. In Dorne, the Sand Snakes are quite uncontrollable.

How is your boss, Prince Doran Martell?
He’s in a wheelchair. He can’t walk, he’s got gout. He’s incredibly pragmatic. He’s a very contained man and he’s incredibly fragile.

So he needs Areo?
Yeah, he needs me but he doesn’t just need me physically. This isn’t in the storyline but hopefully it will be there in the playing, that Areo also acts as a kind of cushion for Doran’s pain. I mean he’s in constant pain. What Areo also provides is somebody who offers empathetic energy without him being a carer in a sense. He offers empathetic energy for a prince who is in great pain physically but mentally is incredibly strong and alive.

Is Areo purely subservient or does he have goals of his own?
I don’t know if subservience is the right word in terms of service. I mean we see servants as subservient or submissive. I don’t think that when it comes to being a warrior, whether it’s Gwendoline’s [Christie] character [Brienne of Tarth] or whether it’s my character, that you’d look at those archetypes as serving their superiors with subservience. I think they’re serving them with courage and with strength. Rather than any one human master, I think that Areo has chosen to be wedded to his long axe: that’s his wife.

You’ve got a signature weapon?
Got a signature weapon?! That’s his woman and that’s what he’s married to! It’s this incredibly tall axe… I mean I’m 6ft 6in so the long axe I think must be nearly 7ft and it’s incredibly heavy. That’s what he wields, whether it’s behind the Prince as his bodyguard or on the battlefield.

Was the long axe made for you?
Yeah. I love it. It’s beautiful. It’s fantastic. It’s brutal. And I do get to wield it, yeah.

What training was involved for fighting with the long axe?
You had to achieve a level of mastery. I mean even just carrying it… it is so heavy! I weigh 260 pounds but this axe was like picking up a 10-year-old child. I had to be trained how to wield it, specifically above my head — I got me some swinging action going on.

What does Areo get to wear?
The costume was really challenging. It’s beautiful. It’s fantastic but it’s heavy as shit. It’s this gold, brocaded long coat kind of thing and then underneath that are these leather harnesses. Then it’s studded with these incredible star designs, they’re all over the jacket. It’s really heavy but it looks really effective... 90 per cent of the performance is the costume.

Do you relish the physical side of it as much as the more cerebral scenes?
They go hand in hand. There is no separation for me as an actor anyway. Most definitely in GoT, even if you’re the most cerebral character, there’s a physicality to that and that’s what’s so fantastic about it — the mind is in the body, the body is in the mind.

Were you a fan of the show before you joined it?
Oh yeah. I love the show, I’m a big fan. Joining it has been like joining a theatre company. It’s not like a TV show — possibly because some of the cast come from theatre.

Is that your background as well?
It’s my background. I was at the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company] with John Bradley. I did Alien 3 with Charles [Dance] back in the day. I mean you see so many actors who have come from theatre and the acting is of such a high calibre that being a part of this has been fantastic. Also, the two guys, David and Dan [Benioff and Weiss], they’re just brilliant show writers. They’ve created this atmosphere of creative energy that makes it fun to come to work. It’s a thrill ride, it really is.

You’ve been filming in Spain.What was it like first seeing the Dorne sets?
I’ve done big movies before, huge movies. This feels like a movie. It doesn’t feel like TV. I did a film called Moulin Rouge and I remember Baz Luhrmann’s attention to detail was just incredible. It’s the same here....

It sounds like it’s been an enjoyable experience. Have you had a blast?
I’m having such a great time. I mean it’s an incredible time, just working with everyone. Kit’s [Harington] great. Alex [Siddig] is great.... It’s been wonderful.

In GoT, the mind is in the body, the body is in the mind.... Do you agree? 
Tell t2@abp.in

Game of Thrones Season 5 will premiere in India simultaneously with the US premiere on April 13 at 6.30am, with a repeat telecast at 10pm, on HBO Defined