EXCLUSIVE: BBC series King and Conqueror sees Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, direct for the first time
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, best known for his role as Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones, has taken on a new character – William, Duke of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror.
In this latest venture, the Danish actor will face off against James Norton in a BBC historical drama that traces the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The series, King and Conqueror, also marks Nikolaj’s directorial debut. Interestingly, his first time directing involved choreographing a scene where the lead actor fights bare-chested.
Discussing the filming of the fight, which viewers will see in episode five, he said: “That was tough. I was spending a lot of time planning that because we only had so much time to do it.
“The stunt team was incredible. The trick, or the challenge, when you do something like that, of course, because everyone’s bare-chested, you can’t hide anything. You know you’re going to hurt yourself when you do these things, so we had to be very careful.”
Nikolaj praised the stunt team, which included UFC and MMA fighters, saying: “These guys insane. The Icelandic guys, they’re brilliant. I mean, there’s one scene, the guy I’m fighting – he’s in fights in the big stuff – which is why I wanted to be the guy choking him out.
“There’s this big, big guy – at one point, he lifts up James [Norton] – early in the fight, he takes one of the other stunt guys and he throws him against this wagon.
“And that was planned but what wasn’t planned was that he’s thrown him so hard that he went through the wagon and he like completely crashed the whole thing. The sound you hear, it’s literally a guy being thrown through. But they just took it.”
He continued by revealing that during production, everyone became so engrossed that one crew member was rendered unconscious, reports the Mirror.
“We had rehearsals where there was a guy knocked out. I mean they go so close, right? And it was a mistake both of them. I mean you should always be able to hold your fist but the other guy, he instead like holding the distance, he kind of moved forward right as he was swinging.
“And they were also you know MMA fighters. So his tooth went out, blood out. And then the other guy, of course, because he hit the tooth, broke [his knuckle], he had to have stitches in his hand as well.”
King and Conqueror tells the tale of a confrontation that shaped a nation’s destiny for a millennium.
The plot summary states: “Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy were two men destined to meet at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; two allies with no design on the English throne, who found themselves forced by circumstance and personal obsession into a war for possession of its crown.”
