Natalie Dormer Almost Turned Down Her Game of Thrones Role 

Natalie Dormer Almost Turned Down Her Game of Thrones Role

Natalie Dormer tells us why she initially had reservations about playing Margaery Tyrell on Game of Thrones.

season 6, Margaery Tyrell sits in a precarious situation due to the political machinations of her royal enemies. And since the HBO flagship series has mostly caught up with the George R.R. Martin source novels, no fan truly knows the fate of the character that Natalie Dormer has played with such gracious cunning for the past four seasons.

showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, as well as for Ms. Dormer, who’s become a fan favorite as the young and thrice-crowned queen. Yet, this specific collaboration almost didn’t happen since Natalie Dormer briefly considered turning down the role of Margaery Tyrell.

star told us as much when we chatted last month during

press junket. In that horror film, she plays twin sisters who are separated when one grimly wanders off into Aokigahara Forest, a real life Japanese wood where thousands have gone to commit suicide. While we will have that full interview up later this week, the conversation inevitably veered toward

. Indeed, one of the most intriguing things to me about her performances in both shows is how they echo one another.

, Dormer played Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife who transformed a nation by becoming Queen of England… and then faced a precipitous fall at the hands of her king and a court that falsely accused her of infidelity and incest. Margaery Tyrell, who is a much more collected and reserved queen than the fiery Anne, still found herself likewise deposed by a royal (in this case Cersei, Queen Mother of sweetly oblivious King Tommen), who, in at least Martin’s

accused Margaery of similarly grotesque and untrue infidelities.

viewers alike remain in the dark about Margaery’s final fate, it is these exact historic parallels and their echoes that gave Dormer momentary pause.

“I contemplated not taking the role of Margaery Tyrell because I thought it was too close to what happened to Anne,” Dormer said. “So I spoke to David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] about it, and I said, ‘I love the show, I’ve watched the first season as a fan, and I’d love to be in the show with you, but I’m scared that on the page, the events that happen to Margaery are too close to Anne Boleyn. And I don’t want to play the same character twice. And Dan and David were like, ‘Nat, we trust you. You’re a talented actor,’ bless them for saying. ‘Don’t worry about it, that’s not going to happen. Your characterization will be different, we trust you.’”

After pausing to laugh at whether she was too easily convinced, Dormer reflected on how the show carefully differentiated the characters and carved its own path.

“In the end, they were right,” Dormer said. “[Margaery and Anne] did turn out to be two totally different women. They want to be queen for different reasons and also, their demise of being thrown into a jail cell has definitely been played very differently. So, I think I had real trepidation and concern about doing that… [but] I think, if I believe what fans have told me in hindsight, they were right. They read as different people completely.”

Indeed, it is hard to imagine someone else in the role and considering the Machiavellian sweetness of Margaery Tyrell, I doubt we should worry about Highgarden’s heirs heading toward the scaffolding anytime soon. But we’ll find out for sure when

The Real History of Game of Thrones: Margaery and Loras Tyrell

Full Star Wars Movie Release Calendar

Sonic the Hedgehog Celebrates 25th Anniversary with New Logo, Possible New Game

The 10 worst crimes against the original Star Wars trilogy

Star Wars Gets a Chronological Timeline of New Canon

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - The Name of Luke Skywalker's Hideout Revealed